Opinions differ on the fervent and fervently overpunctuated open letter Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert blasted out last night, which GC covers and excerpts here. An anecdotal survey of my Facebook feed revealed that most people were on the “You go, mortgage-business billionaire” side of things, while TrueHoop’s Henry Abbott saw the letter as a disastrous breach of PR etiquette. (Abbott also offers a defense of James’s decision to join Miami, so he’s obviously not one to be swayed by opinions at critical mass)
But one issue that more or less no one has with the Gilbert letter is whether or not the guy likes using quotation marks. He obviously does. Another one: Gilbert’s choice of much-maligned goof-font Comic Sans for his letter’s typeface might’ve been the true masterstroke of his missive. Presumably some would question Gilbert’s decision to use a font that’s most popular on casual dining menus and emails from parents, but the fact remains that some things just look silly in Wingdings. In the Wall Street Journal, David Biderman and Emily Steel (who wrote perhaps the definitive piece on the backlash against Comic Sans back in 2009) touch upon Gilbert’s font of choice.
[Comic Sans’] bubbly style ” it’s been used in Disney ads and Beanie Baby tags ” has feuled borderline-irrational hatred. There is a Ban Comic Sans website and clothing, stickers and tote bags that call for its obliteration. In a story published late Thursday at TechCrunch.com, a writer trashed Gilbert’s use of œprobably the worst font ever to grace the computer screen.
As for why Gilbert used the font? A Cavaliers spokesman says, “Dan has used the Comic Sans font for years and years in all of his communications.”
http://achewood.com/index.php?date=07052007
CNN has a funny piece on it, too.
I had a professor of Management who also used Comic Sans and it drove me nuts because it has the effect of not taking the writer very seriously…or of the assignments written in that font. It’s hard to seem irate in that font, Gilbert. I should talk, though. I once sent out a cover letter in Bauhaus 93. (!?!?!)