Decodeunicode.org has a useful and full-featured search for the names and glyphs for those Unicode characters that display as a plain box full of despair. It is presented by the Department of Design at the University of Applied Sciences in Mainz. Roll the dice ⚅⚄ and try it out. [more inside]
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim on Jan 23, 2009 - 25 comments

Illustrator Apelad has many various projects & flickrsets, including the fairly well known Laugh Out Loud Cats & the Hodgman inspired Hobo Names project, but some of the lesser known ones are awesome as well, including this set of images created for common HTTP Errors, this Alphabet of Monsters, and a personal favorite, Monkey!, wherein users send in a monkey description and receive in return a drawing.
posted by jonson on Jul 8, 2007 - 11 comments

Dear MEFI, I just love Alphabetilately, and I think you will too! Yours sincerely, taz.
posted by taz on Sep 17, 2004 - 19 comments

A Guide to Alternative Handwriting and Shorthand Systems
posted by anastasiav on Jul 5, 2004 - 8 comments

AncientScripts.com : discover introductions to more than 70 ancient and modern writing systems, from LinearB to hPhags-pa to Cherokee. View languages by type, family, or region. Many links to further reading on each subject, plus other goodies.
posted by falconred on May 7, 2004 - 3 comments

29 May 1453, Constantinople fell to Mehmet II, sultan of the Ottoman Turks. With it fell the last stronghold of Christendom in the East. Founded by Constantine the Great, the Byzantine empire had lasted 1129 years.

During which time it created the Cyrillic alphabet, was sacked by the 4th crusade, precipitated the great schism, and created some of the most beautiful religious art of the ancient world. Sailing to Byzantium?
posted by leotrotsky on Dec 12, 2003 - 22 comments

The Alphabet: Meaningless shapes arbitrarily linked to meaningless sounds. When George Bernard Shaw died in 1950, his will provided for the development of a new alphabet for the English language, an alphabet of at least forty letters that could be used to write English without all the oddities of our traditional spelling. Learn more about the history and origins of The Shaw Alphabet, and look at some of its competitors, including the initial teaching alphabet, Inglish Simplifíd Speling and The Unifon Alphabet - a 40 character alphabet resulting from the Shaw alphabet competition. Or, read what Mark Twain had to say on the subject.
posted by anastasiav on Sep 23, 2003 - 10 comments

Rubberboy demonstrates that alphabet art can be used as more than just a creative teaching tool for kids. Artists have a long tradition of using the ABCs as a canvas for the macabre, the sacred, the erotic and the just plain kinky. warning! links contain flash and some NSFW material.
posted by madamjujujive on Sep 27, 2002 - 10 comments

God Save the Subjunctive. Because if he doesn't, who will? And there's more, oh so much more, to this intricate thing we call language. What does it mean?, where did it come from? And how would ancient Babylonians write your name, anyway?
posted by headspace on Sep 16, 2002 - 26 comments