I write a newsletter about the hidden history of design, vernacular typography, and visual culture (plus a cabinet of random curiosities)
Hey everyone,
I’m a graphic designer and independent researcher from Brazil, and I write a Substack newsletter called Newsletra.
My main focus is on visual memory, graphic design history, and typography, especially the popular, vernacular or forgotten stuff that often goes unnoticed. It’s definitely not that standard "corporate design tips" or UX/UI tutorials.
To give you an idea of the topics, recent editions covered:
- A deep dive into the graphic design and vernacular typography that helped elect Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York.
- A historical hunt for a forgotten 15-year-old female typographer from 1948 whose work was lost to time.
- An exploration of an old "Gabinete Typographico" (Typographic Cabinet), unearthing the rich history of letterpress printing, classic type catalogs, and the tactile memory of early graphic design.
I also have a section at the end called Gabinete de Miudezas (Cabinet of Curiosities) where I drop random hyper-fixations: highly curated design content tips (like obscure articles, typography documentaries, and visual culture references), testing cheap Chinese "super shoes" for my half-marathons, weird YouTube rabbit holes, and music discoveries. (I used to include a picture of my dog to boost engagement, but I cut it due to low ROI. A tragic editorial decision because it is called Serifa, serif in Portuguese).
A quick heads-up: It's written in Portuguese, but I know a lot of folks in niche communities use browser translation these days. I wanted to share it here because I know there are fellow newsletter nerds who appreciate deep, slightly obsessive research into visual culture, regardless of the language barrier.
If that sounds like your kind of rabbit hole, I’d love for you to check it out.
