Vincent Connare
Vincent Connare (born September 26, 1960) is an American type designer and former Microsoft employee. Among his creations are the fonts Comic Sans and Trebuchet MS, as well as the Man in Business Suit Levitating emoji. Besides text typefaces, he finalized and hinted the font Marlett which has been used for scalable User Interface icons in Microsoft Windows since 1995 and created portions of the font Webdings that was first shipped with Internet Explorer.
Vincent Connare
Vincentconnare · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Born
- 1960. · Boston.
- Nationality
- United States.
- Occupation
- photographer, engineer, designer and calligrapher.
- Fields
- graphics.
- Education
- University of Reading, New York Institute of Technology and Milford High School.
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Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
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wikidata · Q2434645 · wikipedia · Vincent Connare
In this article
Education
Education
Connare studied at Milford High School in Milford, Massachusetts, and at the New York Institute of Technology where he received a bachelor's degree in Fine Arts and Photography. He later earned a master's degree in Type Design at the University of Reading.
Career
Career
After graduating from the New York Institute of Technology, Connare began working as a photographer for the Worcester Telegram in Massachusetts and helped establish a Cherokee-language newspaper. In 1987, Connare joined Compugraphic, which was seeking staff to convert its typeface library from phototypesetting to digital formats. During his tenure there, Connare acquired skills in TrueType font hinting and provided hinted fonts for Hewlett-Packard, Apple, and Microsoft.
Microsoft
Microsoft
He joined Microsoft in 1993. While working for Microsoft, Connare contributed to documents on font production as well as the fonts Trebuchet MS, Webdings, and most notably Comic Sans. An icon of a jumping man that Connare created for Webdings was later made an emoji with the identifier U+1F574 🕴 MAN IN BUSINESS SUIT LEVITATING. He left Microsoft in 1999 and worked towards his master's degree at the University of Reading in England.
Dalton Maag
Dalton Maag
After completing his studies at the University of Reading, he joined Dalton Maag, a typeface design company located in Brixton, London, in 2001. While working at Dalton Maag, Connare created the Magpie font and designed a font for an update of the Ministry of Sound logo which was originally designed by the artist Chemical X.
Creating Comic Sans
Creating Comic Sans
When Microsoft launched Windows 1995, it featured a new program, Microsoft Bob, that included a cartoon that would talk with speech bubbles, and text presented in Times New Roman. Connare felt that the cartoons in Microsoft Bob needed a less formal looking font; something more suitable for kids. Inspired by DC and Marvel comic books, Connare created Comic Sans in 1994 by using a mouse and cursor to draw intentionally sloppy letters. Microsoft Bob inevitably faded into obscurity, but Comic Sans secured its legacy after Microsoft included the font in Windows 95.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1960
Vincent Connare born at Boston.
Reception
Soon after Connare created Comic Sans, the font was adopted by many notable companies including Apple, BMW, and Burberry. Despite the font's commercial success, it became controversial and has garnered many detractors, particularly in the graphic design industry. The hatred has gotten so intense that there have been several attempts to get the font banned. Connare has not been offended by the negative backlash to his creation; in fact, at the Fourth Annual Boring Conference, Connare said he found the contempt for his work to be "mildly amusing". Comic Sans has been used in multiple applications ranging from newspapers titles and store signs, to the Spanish Copa del Rey trophy and the Pope's photo album at the Vatican. Connare has stated that he is very proud of the font, offering different rationales. Arguing that "Comic Sans does what it was commissioned to do, it is loved by kids, mums, dads and many family members. So it did its job very well. It matched the brief!" He has also referred to it as "the best joke I've ever told." Comic Sans is a particularly popular typeface; in fact, Simon Garfield's book, Just My Type, devotes the first chapter to Comic Sans. The typeface is also listed in the book How to Design a Typeface by the Design Museum in London, which was reviewed in newspapers across London. Comic Sans has also featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal.
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Vincent Connare, revision 1368638785 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Macmillan, Neil. An A-Z of type designers. Yale University Press. 68. 2006. 0300111517.
- 2.Bitstream. Vincent Connare. MyFonts.
- 3.Typophile. Vincent Connare. Designers.
- 4.Vincent Connare. classmates.com.
- 5.Loxley, Simon. Meet Vincent Connare. Design Week. 2008-10-09.
- 6.Veix, Joe. The secret history of the 'Man in Business Suit Levitating' emoji. Newsweek. 2016-03-30.
- 7.Design Week Ltd. Design Week.
- 8.Fletcher, Dan. The 50 Worst Inventions. Time. May 27, 2010. 0040-781X.
- 9.Dowling, Tim. The Comic Sans creator explains how he made the world's most-hated font. The Guardian. June 4, 2014. 0261-3077.
- 10.Why we're loving: Vincent Connare, type designer.
- 11.People who don't like Comic Sans don't know anything about design. Dezeen. November 27, 2014.
- 12.The Story Behind Comic Sans - Fonts.com - Fonts.com. Fonts.com.
References
Citations
References
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Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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