The Final Alphabet

February 11, 2012 5:06 PM

Arkitypo — Using the 26 letters of the alphabet as the starting point, the curators selected a specific typeface that began with each respective letter to develop a 3d alphabet of alphabets. After thoroughly researching the history of each letter, they set out to represent each individual character graphically with elements of its history serving as the foundation. Arkitypo: letter rotations on Vimeo.
posted by netbros (3 comments total)

I like the idea although I find myself wanting to see the alphabets because the descriptions are so evocative!

The F was beautiful and the description fascinating:

Fraktur
This classic ‘blackletter’ style of fonts is umbilically linked to Germany’s history, being the predominant style for centuries in pre-war Germany. For most of the 20th century it proved controversial, eventually being banned by the Nazis in 1941. Post-war adoption of sans-serif typefaces effectively killed it off as the nation’s style of script.

I did not know that the Nazis banned a font!
posted by the young rope-rider at 7:38 PM on February 11

@the young rope-rider: The Nazi's used it heavily when they first came to power, due to its highly Germanic nature, but due to ink shortages they eventually banned it as having too much 'Jewish influence' or somesuch, since Latin script takes so much less ink.
posted by Canageek at 6:55 AM on February 12 [2 favorites]

I can't decide which disturbs me more: that I recognize so many of the typefaces, or that the chain of Perptua P's is labeled as a Möbius strip but isn't.

in order to make a Möbius strip you'd have to use a letter which is symmetric under a half-rotation, like H or X
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 7:25 PM on February 12