Not Your Usual Characters: 30 Amazing Alphabet Recreations
The Alphabet dates back to the Egyptian era and forms the basis of our language, through the years people have experimented and created a wealth of interesting and unique alphabets. This is a collection of some of the best examples.
Unique Approaches To A-Z
Everyday Alphabet
Photographing everyday objects such as bananas and stairs to create a colourful rustic collection of letters.
Street Letters
A four month long project to collect the letters of the Alphabet, all are found objects in the street.
Underground Collection
A entire night spent taking hundreds of photos on multiple rolls of film on an old Pentax K10000 through the subways of New York.
Google Maps Alphabet
A 7 month project which shows land formations or buildings which resemble letter forms within the state of Victoria, Australia.
Fire-Poi Typography
It took about two 15 hour sessions to complete, and every letter had about 30-50 takes and lot’s of gasoline to get right.
Type The Sky
Created by Lisa Rienermann while studying at the University of Duisburg-Essen, the alphabet is formed of the shapes of buildings against the sky when photographed.
Type Booksetting
Named after the act of typesetting, as every letter made of colored books had to be blocked with white books, just as it is done in letterpress.
Tie-pography
Constructed from a personal tie collection including ties bought at flea markets, thrift stores with a few brand new purchases sprinkled throughout.
Alphabet Truck
Photographer Eric Tabuchi photographed trailer trucks on empty highways, each bearing one letter of the alphabet. Each is perfectly uniform in scale and composition
Industrial Alphabet
Kalle Hagman created this alphabet entirely from photographs of industrial items, locations and landscapes.
Futura 001: Hirsute
An alphabet built on the typeface Futura, but given a unique (and a little creepy) twist.
Bulldog Clips
A typeface by Dave Wood, it has a wonderful silhouette effect and shows how something as commonplace as a bulldog clip can serve as inspiration.
Delicious Cucumber
A couple who are both passionate about cucumbers and typography created this rather unique alphabet creation.
Typeface In Skin
Easily the weirdest (and most painful) alphabet creation i’ve seen. It was constructed by Thijs Verbeek and is made with clothespegs and skin.
Eat-a-bet
Luiza Prado (from Rio de Janeiro, Brazi) created this alternative edible typography with the food he was obsessed with as a student.
Shopfront Graffiti
It took three trips over two nights to get a complete alphabet of these letters by graffiti artist called Eine.
On A Shoestring
An alphabet made from shoestrings drapped into a cursive pattern, by Mark Notermann.
Hamburgers
An alphabet made out of raw meat by Robert Bolesta, it was hand-shaped, packaged, and each letter was photographed ndividually.
White Corn
An alphabet created with White Corn. The luminosity of the corn set against the earthy background makes the ‘letters’ pop.
Astronomical Alphabet
The alphabet written in the stars and space, a selection of gorgeous calligraphy combined to create a pretty amazing collection of letters.
Ideographic Alphabet
This refers to the combination of Alphabetic (letter form) and ideographic (based on pictorial symbols).
Anatomical Alphabet
An illustrated alphabet an the 19th century style with each letter composed of various body parts.
42 Comments
Nice art:)
Flag as inappropriateNice feature. What typeface did you use to create the number “30″ in the introductory image?
Flag as inappropriategood creativity great work keep it up…………… :-)
Flag as inappropriategood works!
Flag as inappropriatereally professional
Flag as inappropriateits very nice. Great post37
Flag as inappropriateits very nice. Great post24
Flag as inappropriatethanks for sharing. So mush115
Flag as inappropriatewow thanks so much.
Flag as inappropriateGreat entertainment for the type enthusiast! Thanks!
Flag as inappropriateGreat collection, Grace. Thanks for sharing.
Flag as inappropriateI like the semi trucks the best. It also seems like it would be a good project on a family trip to try to keep everyone entertained.
Flag as inappropriatevery interesting post, nice to see a collection of characters
Flag as inappropriateNice collection, thanks!
Flag as inappropriateNice collection!
Flag as inappropriate@Mark Your Shoestring alphabet was incredible, it was a pleasure to feature it in the post.
@Khalid No worries at all, it was one of my favorites so I had to make sure it was included :-)
Flag as inappropriateyeah, im sorry..
Flag as inappropriateCool collection as always!
Flag as inappropriateUau, really amazing and inspiring stuff here, great collection I had never seen some of these. Thanks :)
Flag as inappropriateMost of those I have never seen ! That is a great collection !
Flag as inappropriateGreat information, great ideas. Will follow U . Thanks
Flag as inappropriateFantastic collection! Love it!!
Flag as inappropriateFlattered to be included in this roundup. Thanks for the great collection!
Flag as inappropriateHi guys thanks for the good feedback, it was a super fun post to research and put together and i’m excited to be contributing to one of my favorite sites :-)
@Khalid The Google Maps alphabet is included, it’s at number four in the list.
Flag as inappropriateExcellent Collection.
Flag as inappropriatethis is nice…..
Flag as inappropriatecreativity never ends…
Nice collection, thanks.
Flag as inappropriateInspired. Thx.
Flag as inappropriateGreat collection Grace! Thanks for sharing with all of us!
Flag as inappropriatecool post, what are the typefaces used in the header for this article? anyone?
Flag as inappropriateIt’s a combination of Archer and Gotham Condensed ;)
Flag as inappropriatehttp://rhettdashwood.com.au/#16575
You forgot this perfect one.
Flag as inappropriateHi Khalid… Grace didn’t forget this one, as it’s the 4th one down from thec collection above. Called “Google Maps Alphabet”
Flag as inappropriateWow, what a great collection!
Flag as inappropriateAwesome collection! Thanks for sharing.
Flag as inappropriateOh, awesome! Great collection. Happy to see you on T9, Grace :).
Flag as inappropriateGreat collection Grace. I have seen a few of these before but a lot were new to me.
Flag as inappropriate