8.26.2008

The ultimate betrayal

Last year I taught a full lecture class due to a reduced load for a new hire. This year that professor is teaching the class and when asked, I contributed all of my resources (notes, syllabus, ppts, exams).
I was ok with it.
Until, I saw the first lecture.
More than half the lecture is made up of my slides. Alright, whatever, if I had an issue with this I shouldn't have given out my lectures.

What bugs me is that the professor made one change and one change only.
They put the titles in Comic Sans.

---Begin rant---

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anything but Comic Sans!!!!!!!*
Its characteristics are too casual for a lecture. It does not convey appropriate professionalism, let alone a first-class-of-the-semester-I'm-the-prof-not-your-buddy attitude. It conveys that your bake sale is for a really good cause. Or that your dance party starts at 8 pm sharp.

---End rant---








*Sorry for the rant if you love the Sans. I think it is great for a lot of things. Just not lectures. Or conference presentations. I had a labmate that used it (in turquoise-bold on a background of a watermarked field picture) for a conference talk. Red Phalarope and I all but threatened to disown her if she did it in her dissertation defense. She tried. We somehow talked some sense into her.

7 comments:

Amanda said...

I, too, loathe the comic sans. It truly is the devil's own font.

kate.d. said...

i can't explain to you how much i hate comic sans. like, it inspires a visceral reaction in me.

there's a website for us, though:
www.bancomicsans.com

(seriously! these people deserve some kind of interweb medal!)

Belle said...

I don't care about the font, but the appropriation of your stuff infuriates me.

I'm a bit sensitive on that lately.

Addy N. said...

Comic sans has the word "comic" in it for a reason- it's not "professional sans". My favorite fonts are Tahoma and Trebuchet.... Thanks for the comment over on my blog, btw.

Dr. A said...

comic sans is for COMIC BOOKS! Just goes to show what a JOKE it is that the prof stole your slides.

Albatross said...

amanda: 'BBQ tonight! Hosted by Satan' would look perfect in the dreaded font.

kate d: Great website. I think I will get a sticker and put it on my office door =)

belle: It is surely a difficult situation. Very sorry to hear you are dealng with anything similar.

addy and dr. a: I laughed out loud at you comments. So, so true!! I will be checking out those fonts too.

chall said...

hm, I like Comic sans but not on big screens and not in professional work thingys...

I usually end up with either Arial (a stepchild feeling, you're not supposed to hate them) or Century Gothic or Tahoma.There is something about these more "square" fonts that is appealing to me in presentations.

For writing, as in not presentations, I prefer Century Schoolbook or Garamond, when I am not usuing Times New Roman. Boring? most likely. Easy to read, yes definetly!