Two subjects that I am extremely passionate about are scuba diving and graphic design. My interest in typography and marine biology pushed me to engage in a study of the similarities between the anatomy of typefaces and creatures under the sea. The result of this study is a publication entitled 'Now you sea them'.

 

I began by identifying typefaces that depict periods of type history (Humanist, Transitional, Modern, and the like) . As I researched marine creatures, I marked down similarities between a particular typeface and marine creature. Some were totally bizarre - like the behavioural tendencies of the octopus vulgaris and the behaviour of Helvetica with other typefaces, while others were highly literal - such as the small x-height of Bembo correlating to the small size of the Hippocampus.

 

Each creature has been illustrated by stippling with a micron pen.
Dimensions of the book: A5 (8.27x5.83")

Each spread of this book has been carefully divided to showcase the similarity between the letterform of a particular typeface and the creature itself. For example, I equated Helvetica's uppercase 'O' with the 'Octopus vulgaris'. Both are bilaterally symmetric, and behaviorally intelligent. Helvetica's ascenders and descenders end vertically and horizontally, never diagonally or with a curve, which is similar to the way the octopus vulgaris has horizontal slit-like pupils.

Digitally printed on off-white 130gsm paper, 'Now you sea them' is meant for anybody interested in typography and marine life. It gives an introduction to type history and exhibits the differences between each typeface. It reacquaints the reader with various aspects of type anatomy required to understand the information given in the book. Every page is designed differently, so as to highlight the similarity between the typeface and its corresponding marine creature.

 

The book concludes with the inferences I have drawn from this project. Through the reasearch and design that went into the making of this book, I learned a lot about typography and its structure, more so than if I were to have studied it on a standalone basis.