15/09/2009

Map-ography, Skin-ography and...Book-ography!

Here are three examples of innovative and inventive typography I have come
across recently and really stuck in my mind. The first is google maps typography. Created by Australian designer Rhett Dashwood. Incredibly he has used google maps to search for land formations and buildings that resemble each individual letter of the alphabet! And perhaps what's even more incredible is that he has found them all within the state of Victoria, Australia. When I first caught glimpse of this alphabet I at least presumed that it was compiled with aerial snapshots from around the world, not just from one region of one country! A great result from an interesting and unique idea.

The second is this typography created from the skin, officially termed Skinography. I don’t know much about it or where it came from, but I discovered it here. I gave up attempting to guess from which parts of the body theses letters were made. All I could spot was the odd nipple here and odd earlobe there! It’s almost quite grotesque and looks pretty painful. The outcome however is extremely effective, even if it does make you cringe. I couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t done a ‘z’ though…

Last but not least is this book typography, by Amandine Alessandra. She has taken Thomas Fuller’s phrase “A book that is shut is but a block” and built up this series of letters using the spines of different coloured books. In between the coloured books, white books are used to block the letters into their forms. On her website there are more examples of typefaces created from everyday things, such as chairs and hands. It’s interesting to see someone transform such mundane, everyday objects into something of order, and look at I from a different perspective.

2 comments:

  1. These are great, especially like the map typography. They remind me of the first year typography brief about phobias. Very effective!

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  2. The Skinography looks painful! But I like the idea of this, it's hard to look at but it's certainly an original way of showing typography through a different media, even if it is by torturing human flesh.

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