Picking the right font for your email, presentation, or friendly notice stuck on the office wall can be head-aching.

　　在发电子邮件，做演讲，甚至在写个贴在办公室墙上的友情小提醒时，都需要选择一种字体。如何选择恰当的字体成了让人头疼的事情。

　　Fonts come in all shapes and sizes and colours. But that doesn't mean you're allowed to go mad and use just ANY font though: these ones are banned.

　　字体形状千差万别，大小不一，颜色各异。但这不意味着你可以随心所欲，选择使用任何字体：以下几种字体就不建议使用。

　　1: Times New Roman

　　Times New Roman is rarely appropriate in a futuristic web2.0-enabled society. It's clumsy, and has weird ugly sharp twisty bits coming off each of the letters. Pick something properly classy like Verdana or Calibri, and let Times die.

　　在web2.0风靡的时代，Times New Roman这种字体已经不大适合用了。这种字体显得有些粗陋，每个字母都有很锐利的扭曲，显得怪怪的，很难看。选用一些漂亮的字体吧，比如Verdana or Calibri，让Times回家吃饭吧！

　　2: Arial

　　Arial's been around so long, now, that it's comforting and familiar in the same way that makes middle-aged men trade in their wives for a younger, sexier model. Arial is therefore the pixel equivalent of a frumpy, disappointing housewife.

　　Arial已经陪伴我们太久了。如今，在使用这个字体时，人们常会顺理成章地联想到这个场景：一名中年男子抛弃了他的妻子，换了位更年轻，更性感的模特作伴。因此，Arial作为一种字体，与衣着邋遢的、心灰意冷的弃妇有异曲同工之妙。

　　3: Papyrus

　　Papyrus makes everything you type look like it was written in Ancient Greece!, albeit by a ROBOT FROM THE FUTURE.

　　每个你用Payrus键入的字看起来都像古希腊语——尽管像是由一个“未来机器人”写下来的。

　　If you're using it, why not go whole hog and flip the colour to green and write "Save the trees! Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to." in your email signature like any of your emails are worth printing off.

　　如果你在使用这个字体，那一不做二不休，干脆字体颜色选成绿色，然后在你的e-mail下方签名中写“Save the trees! Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to..”(爱护树木，人人有责！除非确实需要，否则请勿打印此邮件。)，这样一来，好像你的每封邮件都具有打印价值了一样。

　　4: Comic Sans

　　The granddaddy of all unusable fonts. Initially intended to be a quick comic book substitute, Comic Sans quickly found itself overused to the point of eye-bleeding saturation, and is now rarely seen outside the realm of ignorant office notes.

　　在不能使用的字体中，这是爷字辈的人物。最初，人们设计Comic Sans字体，是为了让其快速在连环画册中抢占一席之地，成为其专用字体。但很快，人们便发觉，这个字体被随处滥用，已经引起人的视觉疲劳了。如今，除了在办公室里，人们还用它写写没人关注的通知外，在其他领域，这种字体已经销声匿迹了。

　　5: Curlz

　　"Look at me!", this font says. "Look at how what I write perfectly embodies the sort of person I am! I'm a bit crazy, and a bit different. I stand out!"

　　“看看我吧！”这个字体挺张扬：“从我身上就完全能看得出，我是一个怎样的人！我有些轻狂，有些与众不同。我必将脱颖而出！”

　　It doesn't matter that you can't actually read what they're writing, because the sort of person that chooses a nonsense font like this invariably hasn't got anything important to say anyway.

　　读不太懂他们写的是什么也无妨，因为能选择这种荒唐字体的人，一般来说，也没什么重要的事情要讲。

　　TRUE STORY: the email invite to last year's VideoJug Christmas Party was written entirely in red and green "Curlz" and the entire office was sick blood.

　　真实故事：去年，VideoJug圣诞聚会的邀请函就选用的Curlz字体，字体颜色全部选择的是红色和绿色。这让整个办公室的人都大倒胃口。

　　In short: be careful about which fonts you use, because the wrong one makes you look like a proper wally.

　　一言以蔽之：选择字体时一定要细心。因为一旦选错了字体，你便会看起来像个大笨蛋。