Font Police is patrolling the world for bad typography. We issue misdemeanours for spelling mistakes and lengthy sentences in our criticisms.

This is a light-hearted humour site, with no offence intended. Send ideas to submissions@ followed by fontpolice.org.

Posts tagged with Aotearoa

Quit school The New Zealand Government embarks on a campaign to lighten the load on the education budget. (Via oneandiwatson on Instagram.)

Quit school The New Zealand Government embarks on a campaign to lighten the load on the education budget. (Via oneandiwatson on Instagram.)

The worst offender so far at Font Police Found by Conrad Johnston in Whitby. Where do we begin? The W and y in Whitby in the first photo are at weird angles. The dots are missing from the is. Whitby is in Baskerville and Sections is in Times New Roman. To match the cap and x-height proportion of the first word, the S in Sections has had to be enlarged. We haven’t even looked at the capitalization of the words in the text in the window, but we will note that that text has been expanded artificially, while Whitby Sections has been condensed.

On to the second photo: the second s in sales is upside-down. It’s more apparent here that the o in Sections is not upright. The centring of the text in the window sucks. Smart quotes are not used, and why are quotes there anyway? Why is Experts capitalized—or is it meant to be ironic, since whomever put the signage up was not an expert?

Some serious Font Police charges are going to be laid against this typographic disaster.

Shoppiug Ceutre Lambton Square got the ns and us right with part of the name, so we know the person doing the signage had access to both letters. Why, then, did they employ an upside-down u for the two ns in Shopping Centre?

Shoppiug Ceutre Lambton Square got the ns and us right with part of the name, so we know the person doing the signage had access to both letters. Why, then, did they employ an upside-down u for the two ns in Shopping Centre?

Can’t count on it That’s the problem with these dot-matrix displays. This one shows the numerals in Klingon. Or some alien script system.

Can’t count on it That’s the problem with these dot-matrix displays. This one shows the numerals in Klingon. Or some alien script system.

The proctologists are based here Lighting goes bad at Pearse House, Wellington, New Zealand. (Photographed by Tanya Sooksombatisatian.)

The proctologists are based here Lighting goes bad at Pearse House, Wellington, New Zealand. (Photographed by Tanya Sooksombatisatian.)


Posted at 10.53 am

niceevilgenius: When neon goes wrong (and the client gets the font big) Hos are us Century City gets festive with ho, ho, ho.

niceevilgenius:

When neon goes wrong (and the client gets the font big)

Hos are us Century City gets festive with ho, ho, ho.

I hope typography’s not on the curriculum Getting the A backwards is not good anywhere. But it’s worse when it’s at a design school.

I hope typography’s not on the curriculum Getting the A backwards is not good anywhere. But it’s worse when it’s at a design school.


Posted at 8.00 am

It’s fun when the s*** comes back up your loo! A public works’ contractor issues a serious warning about the likelihood of water coming up the toilet. However, the warning is in Comic Sans, making it seem like a fun thing to happen to a homeowner.

It’s fun when the s*** comes back up your loo! A public works’ contractor issues a serious warning about the likelihood of water coming up the toilet. However, the warning is in Comic Sans, making it seem like a fun thing to happen to a homeowner.


Posted at 7.57 am

What’s a ‘restauranter’? The typeface choice is actually quite good. It’s just problematic when a typo appears on a sign one storey high.

What’s a ‘restauranter’? The typeface choice is actually quite good. It’s just problematic when a typo appears on a sign one storey high.