You can’t really read the Fe2O3 Glyphs alphabet. At least, not in the traditional, A-B-C parallel way you’d expect. Which is not to say the so-called typeface isn’t packed with meaning, because it is.
The Fe2O3 Glyphs alphabet is the collaborative creation of Craig Ward, an ex-ad man who creates unorthodox typefaces, and Linden Gledhill, a biochemist who develops cancer therapies by day and conducts otherworldly chemical experiments in his extracurricular hours. The two have worked together on a handful of projects over the years, the latest being this typeface made from ferromagnetic fluid and black ink.
Ferromagnetic fluid was developed at NASA in the 1960s. Researchers were trying to figure out how to move fuel into an engine without the help of gravity. They found that infusing the liquid with nanoscale ferromagnetic particles allowed them to manipulate it with a magnetic field. In his lab, Gledhill exploited this magnetic property by placing a tiny amount of ferrofluid between two glass plates and then spinning it around like a roundabout on a playscape. With every spin, the liquid would scatter into a unique, snowflake-like configuration.
Gledhill showed the inky patterns to Ward. “For me, for someone who worked with symbols and languages, they looked like carvings or hieroglyphics,” he says. Or, “the patterns were like when you look really closely at an insect’s eye.” Ward took Gledhill’s photographs of the different ferrofluid splatters, tidied them with editing software, and created ink letterpress stamps for 138 of them. The series is being printed on heavy stock paper and converted into a downloadable font. The print and digital forms are available through Ward and Gledhill’s Kickstarter campaign.
No comments:
Post a Comment