The Next Stage

“As my calligraphy practice developed, I ran into some practical problems. Inscribing long passages by spelling each word required too much space, and as my lettering matured conceptually, I eventually found the 26-letter English alphabet was not enough. I needed to find a way to represent an entire word in a single character. From this came Single Word Characters.

Each Single Word Character is designed by first arranging the letters of an English word to fit within a square format – which is the base design parameter for characters in the Chinese writing system. I then apply the principles of Chinese calligraphy, using stroke-shape, stroke-order, and flow to create the Single Word Character. From there, it can be plugged into any lettering style in order to express a feeling or tone. An ever-evolving collection of each character design now lives in an alphabetized index.”