Papyrus has recently tried for a makeover. She’s fighting hard to re-establish herself as a worthy font in the mainstream, and upgrade her stature. The typographic star of James Cameron’s Avatar even earned herself a new website, iheartpapyrus.com, dedicated to “celebrating the ubiquitous overuse of every amateur’s favorite font.” Like Madonna, earning fame in her 1983 heyday, she starred on many a restaurant menu, and was the posterchild for countless natural, earthy company logos. As she strives to redefine herself from her past appearances the question remains to be seen, can she make a comeback?
In recent years graphic designers have deemed Papyrus a tired, clichéd and overused font. In her next performance, Papyrus is the voice of babycakes, a bakery for baked treats and confections. True to her roots, she retains her brown, earthy undertones, but combines herself with a new and unexpected shade of pink, suggesting a delicious bite of strawberry and chocolate. Her lower case b stands tall in the background like some giant cookie, waiting to be devoured. Where her rough edges once represented the markings of chalk or ink over a plant based Egyptian paper, they now crumble like bits of cake or fudge brownies. But too much of her unique stylings and she is sure to crumble into some bad press. “Babycakes” would have climbed the charts had she not shown off on the rest of the label. Papyrus has an old soul, and it is questionable whether she can succeed in communicating a brand that’s trying to convey a sense of newness, cuteness and babies.
Heard sparingly and appropriately, Papyrus may succeed in a comeback. However, if she gets too much press, we are sure to overindulge on this font and lose our babycakes. The true question is: Can we, as graphic designers learn to salute and adore this font as much as the fans at iheartpapyrus.com? As she pops up again and again, we will need to accept this tenacious font as we’ll most likely be defeated.