Typography Tuesday - Arbitrary Constructs

Before I dropped my Linguistics class (it was waaay to early in the morning), I remember the professor saying something that made me think. There's nothing special about any word -- they're all just arbitrary constructs we all agree upon. For instance, if I say "chair," there's nothing magical about the word that makes it mean "thing to sit on." The only reason "chair" means "thing to sit on" is that we all agree that it does. Language nerd that I am, I'd love it if words had some special properties (they often feel like they do), but they don't. Type is the same way.

Sam Winston took Romeo and Juliet, cut out each line, and arranged them into Passion, Rage and Indifference. He then made collages of each collection (Indifference is still unfinished).

The first is Rage; the second is Passion. But can you really tell? I can't. There's nothing intrinsic or special about the type itself to tell you.
from here.


To go in the entirely opposite direction -- I know the last couple of these have been letters made of clever things -- but I really couldn't pass up "Alphabets" by Bela Borsodi. It's really a beautiful collection of photographs, and it took me a few minutes before I realized that they're all physically possible. The photos are brilliantly composed. It's like seeing a face in a cloud but knowing that it was put there. Even though letters themselves don't have any intrinsic meaning, the meaning we attach to them is enough, maybe.

from here.