for the love of fonts

Typeface and typography can be such a beautiful means of conveying an idea or a mood. I like knowing that a font isn't just a means to convey written language, but can be beautiful all on it's own, or - as the following will show - interpreted into something completely new. Here are some creative examples of typography gone wild.

1. a song that's easy to 'pick up'

I found the following images on tumblr, but traced them back to Houston-based student Antonious Bui. He's just an undergraduate fine arts student at the Maryland Institute College of Art, but I've seen these photos everywhere. This one is called "Your Song":

I especially love the way all the words are one long strand - emphasizing the wholeness of a piece of music, and even of a song as many ideas collected into one thought or expression. And the tactile-ness! You can just pick it up. A really beautiful way of representing how songs can "touch" or "move" us, despite their lack of physical extension. Ah! Just love it. He's done some other work with the same medium (and other phenomenal things too) so be sure to check out his profile on the MICA site for more.

2. spell 'minigolf'

This next project is the brainchild of Ollie Willis, a recently graduated London-based designer who likes to compare the frustrations (and yet ultimate enjoyment) of designing to similar feelings experienced by golfers. He plans to create an entire typeface-themed miniature golf-course, starting with the beautiful letter 'g'. Using the the curves, 45º and 90º angles present in ordinary courses, Ollie's begun the process of creating a set of letter-press challenges that will thrill not only golfers, but designers too.

Be sure to check out his site for more! He's done a bunch of interesting things, from encrypted book covers (where the title can be decoded if you have enough copies) to 3D posters that change their message based on your perspective.

3. tasty typeface

This last project is a response to the question "can you describe the taste of a font?" According to the industrious peeps over at Prim Prim, a visual communications studio in Lithuania, you can! Their graphic designers have had a lot of fun interpreting the style and character of different fonts into various meals, visible on their blog Taste the Font. The first example is Times, a classic English font interpreted as a scrumptious English Breakfast.

Here's their write-up explaining the yummy transformation from serif to breakfast:

How wonderful! You can't get more traditional than Times (or a classic fry-up, that's for sure). Here are some more to feast your eyes on:

Courier New:

Look at those little paper kernels!

Comic Sans:

Such lovely interpretations! And I really think the geometric paper food looks too delicious for words (see what I did there?)!