I hate it when people use Papyrus font because they think it looks artsy.

I don’t consider myself a visual design elitist, by any means.  I’ve learned a little about the subtle art through my work with Eleven, particularly during epic layout sessions with Strom.  I can pretty effectively tell the difference now between Helvetica font and Arial, though I wouldn’t look down on you for not being able to do so.

But still, Papyrus abuse is egregious.  It’s stupid awful, and it shows me that you really just half-assed your brand image.  Which, naturally (and for once, not sarcastically), leads me to believe that you’re half-assing and cutting corners everywhere else in your business.  I’ve declined to eat at restaurants before because the place used a Papyrus typeface on its banner.

Moral of the story is, if you want to be unique, do it right and be unique.  Using a glitzy font that’s available for free in every single package ever of Microsoft Office won’t get you there.

This brings me to two easy points.

1) Here’s a page of awesome fonts that are still free, but will make you look like a bad ass.  Not Layout Editor of a magazine bad ass, but ass enough.

2) Someone is apparently even more enfuriated by Papyrus than I am, and made an entire blog devoted to it.  As per the title of this post, it’s called Papyrus Patrol.  It’s worth a quick sift-through if you’re an aggravated fontophile like me.