Thursday, December 1, 2011

Tips for Protesters: nothing says "easy to read" like Helvetica.

Our office is next-door to Jeb Hensarling's so we've been seeing occasional groups of protesters on the sidewalks outside. (Once I took the elevator with about 15 protesters heading to his office ... leaving the remaining 15 waiting for the next elevator. Suddenly I understood why I'd seen his office manager exiting down the stairs on my way down to the mailbox.)

Anyway.

Usually they have hand-made signs but they are written large and simply.

Today, there is a more organized group, although not many of them, sporting a variety of pre-printed signs.

There is nothing worse for protesters than to have bunch of people working in advertising looking out the window. No matter what our personal political views, there is one thing we can agree on.

NEVER use an open-face type to print a protest sign.

Use Helvetica. Keep it simple.

We couldn't really tell what they were protesting because of the confusing messages on the signs. ("Shop local" - were they protesting the Walgreen's across the street? "We love capitalism but hate greed." The Post Office lay offs? Our building is right next to a huge Post Office and we've seen a protest or two over that. "$$$ ... elections ... blah, blah, blah" The government thing? The Occupy thing? Not that we understand that, but we know it's a thing.)

Again in the elevator, clarity came.  I talked to some other tenants who'd spoken with the protesters ... it's for Occupy Dallas. They probably didn't appreciate this gentleman's advice of, "That's not how you get a job. Go to the unemployment office. Knock on business's doors. No one's going to hand it to you standing by the street, even with a sign."

Be that as it may, take our advice.

Helvetica.

Always Helvetica.

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