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Week 1: Sunday Homework: Blog Post 1
Week 1: Sunday Homework: Blog Post 1
Helvetica
Helvetica, the Max Miedinger-designed typeface of 1957, has become one of the world's most recognized and widely used typefaces. Swiss Haas Type Foundry designed Helvetica initially as a precise, neutral, and highly legible design, perfect for both digital and print media. Its plainness, cleanliness, and equal width have given it widespread usage in different sectors, such as corporate identity and city signage.
Initially named Neue Haas Grotesk, this font would come to be called Helvetica by 1960, in honor of its Swiss beginnings-from the Latin word for Switzerland, Helvetia. Helvetica gained quick popularity and increasingly so during the 1960s and 1970s, during a period when modernist design principles were coming to take hold. Individuals enjoyed its versatility and neutrality, with which it did not overpower a message but functioned in a wide variety of circumstances. This neutral beauty, however, has stirred some controversy—critics have bemoaned that its ubiquity makes it visually bland, while its defenders argue that it achieves eternal, unobtrusive clarity.
In literature, Helvetica has had a deep impact on the appearance of advertising, public signage, and even literature. It has been used by international brands such as Apple, American Airlines, and Microsoft, solidifying its association with clarity, modernity, and professionalism. The flexibility of the font has made it the go-to for corporations seeking to create a feeling of seriousness without pushing the boundaries of appearing too ornate or flashy. It is still Helvetica's hold in the computer age that dominates user interfaces and websites, where clarity of reading is paramount.
Helvetica's contribution to lettering design is that it sends a message without drawing attention to the typography. For writers, its use in both form and content promotes a focus on content over form. Its neutrality has allowed it to cut across cultural and linguistic boundaries to be used as an international font for global communication. Its meaning for writers is profound: Helvetica represents a balance between form and function, where the words, and not the typeface, are paramount.
Source: Samuels, David. Helvetica: Homage to a Typeface. Harvard University Press, 2009.
Week 2: Sunday Homework: Blog Post 2
Week 2: Sunday Homework: Blog Post 2
Excerpt of Pobreza e Grossura (Poverty and Rudeness) by Olavo de Carvalho
Bravo! Magazine, July of 2000
Originally published in Brazilian Portuguese.
"There are still those who say: “But if you give him money, he’ll just drink it away at the first street corner!” Well, let him drink! As soon as he pockets it, the money is his. You want to “educate” the poor for citizenship and start by denying him the right to spend his own money as he sees fit? You want to educate him without first respecting him as a free citizen who, tormented by misery, has the same right to get drunk as a bankrupt banker would, mutatis mutandis? You want to educate him by forcing upon him the humiliating lie that his poverty is a kind of minority status, a biological inferiority that makes him incapable of managing the three or four reais (Brazilian currency) you gave him as alms? No! If you want to educate him, start with the most obvious thing: be polite. Say “sir,” “ma’am,” ask where he lives, if the money you gave is enough to get him there, if he needs a sandwich, some medicine, a bit of friendship. Do that every day, and in three months you’ll see that man, that woman, rise from misery, straighten their spine, fight for a job, and succeed.”"
Here I will make a conversion for an Instagram carousel.
Slide 1 - Title: Want to Help the Poor? Start by Trusting Them.
Subtitle: Stop policing how the homeless spend their money. Start treating them like people.
Slide 2: You’ve probably heard it before: “If you give that guy money, he’ll just spend it on alcohol.”
Slide 3: So what? If he does, that’s his choice. Once he puts it in his pocket, it’s no longer your business. It’s his money.
Slide 4: Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Too many people want to "educate" the poor without first respecting them.
Slide 5: They see poverty as a kind of moral failure—or worse, as a lack of intelligence. They assume that someone sleeping rough can’t be trusted with five dollars.
Slide 6: No one says a bankrupt banker doesn’t deserve a drink. Why hold the poor to a different standard?
Slide 7: If you really want to help: say sir, say ma’am. Ask where they live. Offer a sandwich, a ride, a conversation. Show up. Every day.
Slide 8: Respect first. That’s how dignity is restored. That’s how change begins
Changes
On pen and paper, longer paragraphs, flowing argumentation, rhetorical flourishes with an elevated tone, work better. Also, in long essays, implicit cultural references are often made.
On the internet, short, punchy paragraphs are used constantly, since the attention span is shorter in times of TikTok. To emphasize the text, visual breaks like bold text and emojis, are used to hook the reader’s attention.
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