Exploring Found Typography

Shortly after reading an article in creativepro.com back in 2004 I took my kids out on a digital photo shoot we called our "ABC" project. The photo opportunities we sought out were inspired by one of the class projects that Brian P. Lawler assigned the students in his Advanced Typography class at Cal Poly, and described in "Bit by Bit: Learning to Love Letters -- and Leading." Given a particular letter, each student was told to "photograph anything that represented their letter in life that was not a man-made letter (no signs, for example)." The photos were then made into a poster of the alphabet.

^{Photo © J. Bear; stairs, no parking spot, park bench in Austin, Texas}

Although we never completed the project, even now my daughters continue to point out things around us that look like letters of the alphabet. It's a fun project that I hope to complete one of these days (some letters are easier to spot than others). It would make an interesting project to give as a gift to a designer friend or just about anyone. There are ways that the project could be personalized or tailored to the recipient: use only recognizable locations and scenes from a specific town or a university or your own home; look for letters only in nature such as plants, trees, animals, rocks, water; look for letters made of all the same material such as all metal or all stone. Have fun with it.

Read Bit by Bit: Learning to Love Letters -- and Leading to learn more about ways to increase your own appreciation of typography.

More: Typography and Creative Typography