Cut and Paste

Sometimes as a student it can be intimidating to put yourself out there and make some truly unusual, one-of-a-kind letterforms. It's easy to admire beautifully executed hand-drawn type but actually doing it ourselves is tough. Besides working with combining typography and drawing, I think there are even more inspirational directions like combining type and three-dimensionality.

Of course words can be made with anything, but one of the most approachable but elegant materials to work with is paper itself. Here are some examples that I think use the paper in a simple but elegant way.

Empo faceted type by Losiento

Alphabet relief by Tim Fishlock

Paper type by Yulia Brodskaya

Origami type by Robert Lang

 Y and S by Jerome Corgier

 The work above is by artist Bianca Chang. I find her use of form and light really interesting, and the detail of gradually building up the imagery is astounding. I also found a video of her process, included below. So although most students probably won't be this ambitious just to get one word (although they certainly could be) I think that looking at type that is dimensional and more than ink on a page is good inspiration to keep trying to push the boundaries.

The making of A from Bianca Chang on Vimeo.