Two weeks ago I had a little idea that blossomed into a wildly popular project entitled ALPHABIKE.
**UPDATE JULY 2010: Posters of ALPHABIKE are now for sale on Etsy!**
It started with these two books I found called Graphic Design: the New Basics, a guide to design principles illustrated primarily with student work, and Teaching Graphic Design, a collection of syllabi from undergraduate and graduate design courses all over the country.
I noticed a project being done in a lot of intro to typography classes was creating an alphabet out of random objects, ranging from banana peels, to army men, shoes, food, bodies, some physical, some photographic. I thought, well, what do I love as much as I love typography and photography? BIKES! Hence the birth of the ALPHABIKE.
I spent a couple days taking photos of bikes (and am now intimately familiar with most every bike on Hampshire’s campus). G, R, K, and F were the most difficult to find. I had to think a lot about distinguishing letters from shapes, what the essential lines of each letter are, and many of the photos are all about perspective.
People have already been asking me about getting a poster of it, so I think I’m going to sell prints as a fundraiser for my circus troupe’s bicycle tour next summer. So let me know if you are interested, and I’ll have them available some time in the next few weeks!
