Citrus Alphabet

The goal of this project was to develop a new alphabet by creating new letterforms from the surrounding environment, based on a certain concept or theme. It was crucial to keep consistency between the letterforms’ angles, sizes, and other typographic elements.

I chose to create a new alphabet based on citrus fruits, alternating in order between lemons, navel oranges, limes, and grapefruits. First, I developed blueprint sketches that created visions of how to use the rinds, pulp, and segments to create letterforms. I then hand-cut each letter from pieces of the fruit and captured the final form with DSLR photography. Next, I edited the photographs in Photoshop to correct coloring and make the lines of the fruit crisp where needed. On Illustrator, I created an illustration of a cutting board on a marble countertop to add a realistic setting and placed the finalized photographs in their pre-determined formats. The final product consisted of the final letterforms arranged in alphabetical order on a 10.75” by 16” sheet of glossy photo paper.