Using real world materials to create type has always interested me. There’s something fascinating about the contrast between the direct meaning derived from the letterforms and the layers of meaning added by the words they create and material they’ve been created in. Here are a few examples I’ve come across recently.

The first is from a Japanese chocolate café, they make some really nice chocolate letters that would make a great gift. The actual design of the café and the signage and packaging is also really nice and quite different from the graphic design I explored while living in Japan.

The second is some conceptual branding work by Sarah France for a hair salon. I really like the exploration of using cut hair to form letters in the word mark.

The third is from one of my favourite designers, Sagmeister. It’s one of the words he created and photographed that formed some quotes he’d written about achieving happiness. It’s interesting to compare the two photos and their meanings, which are of the same object just at different angles – there is only one point where a word is formed but I wonder if the same meaning can exist at other angles.