Monday, January 4, 2010

2010 calligram greeting


Here is a 2010 calligram greeting created with TypeDrawing (iPod Touch) by Laura Ruggeri for the design firm LR Communication Design's corporate greeting.
Laura saw two smiley eyes and one nose in 2010 and she added a happy smile with the message "let's keep smiling" for the new year.

Friday, January 1, 2010

2010 calligram made with kids and hope

"May the new year bring us more love, togetherness and a nourishing light in our hearts" is the message I "heard" in my heart looking at this picture.
A group of children, ice skaters, arrange themselves to form the number 2010 to welcome the new year at the Ice Skating Carnival in Shimla, India.
(AP/Press Association Images)

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Typeface Portraits

by Leslie Nichols

Experimenting with text and image has become endless source of ideas and inspiration central to my studio practice.

Letterforms create both spatial and literary passages, which provide a visual texture that is exciting and sometimes challenging to work with.


It has been a natural evolution to use writing in my visual work. Informal sketches while doodling or writing letters to friends were my first calligrams. I began incorporating text in my fine art portraiture when I discovered a typewriter was an exciting image making tool.

Experiencing the beauty and history of the English landscape first hand inspired my current paintings and prints. We lived at Harlaxton Manor in rural England for four months while my husband was a Visiting Professor at Harlaxton College. In these landscapes human presence is presented with text rather than by a plume of smoke, a village or man with cart.

View more about Leslie Nichols
and her work at

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Visual words for interiors

"ModernMantra is a series of 18 "text drawings" made in Indian ink on white paper. In a somewhat schematic fashion they portray sterile and depopulated interiors, often simply but properly furnished. One does not have to get very close to them to see that the drawings are really calligrammes, that the interiors are drawn with words that simultaneously describe what they depict."
says Kim West in his text "The Mutant Nerd" in the catalog ModernMantra produced for the exhibition at Borås Konstmuseum (Sweden) in 2006.

Thomas Broomé is the artist of these calligram interiors ModernMantra.
He is a contemporary artist born in Malmö (Sweden) in 1971.

View the calligrams of ModernMantra and seven new addition just presented in an exhibition at the Galeri Magnus Karlsson in Stockholm.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

A bag made by words

This is a plastic bag that "carries" a very meaningful statement.
Designed by Thorbjørn Ankerstjerne while he was a student.

I think this design could be included in the "Good Work Project" where good work happens when excellent and ethic meet.
But so far it's included in the book New Packaging Design by Janice Kirkpatrick that features over 80 packaging designs from all over the world.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Images of YOU

Here is another example of images as letterforms.
The letters Y, O, and U, are formed by images of YOU.

This is a screen shot I took from an online ad. It was late in the night and I did not notice from and by whom it was created. Maybe Facebook? Vodafone? Please, if you know more details, write a comment below, I will appreciate it.
I can recall that you could roll over on the single image and a little pop-up opened to show the name and more details of the person.

In this blog you can find other examples of images as letterforms.

Let's notice what they have in common:
- the letterforms are formed by the object or meaning of the word itself.
In this case the word YOU is formed by individual "you-s".