Glyph Garden
A running experiment in letting letters sprout — stems from terminals, leaves from serifs, seed-heads from dots.
The brief
No brief. One letter a week, drawn in seven stages, from a plain grotesk skeleton to something closer to a hedge.
The challenge
Keep the letters readable for as long as possible while they become more and more like plants.
Creative approach
- Each letter starts as a heavy grotesk skeleton. Growth only happens at terminals, so the core shape stays recognisable.
- Stages are drawn by hand, then traced and cleaned so the whole alphabet shares one stroke logic.
Growth only happens at the edges.
The skeleton of each letter never changes. Leaves, stems and seed-heads grow from terminals, so you can still read a word long after it has started to sprout.
Outcome
Fourteen letters so far, a specimen sheet and a growth strip. It may become a display font; it may just stay a garden.
Something like this, for you?
I take on a few projects at a time. Tell me what you’re making and when.