Word Play is an ongoing typographic project exploring the relationships and meaning of words, their visual interaction, and at times, their duality.

As a designer my work naturally involves working with words, so often, after staring at a word for a long time the meanings, references, etymology and sometimes even cultural baggage become apparent. We tend to take language for granted and this project reminds me to appreciate words, our alphabet and letterforms for the amazing, distilled symbols of communication that they are. As a species, our languages and ability to communicate and record ideas, knowledge and history defines us and helps to shape the progress of society. It’s easy to forget how important these characters and collections of symbols really are to us.

Exploring these shapes and the meanings we give them is a seemingly inexhaustible mind game and art project that I love to revisit and play with. The project includes custom designed alphabets for use in a growing collection of prints, paintings and 3D work some of which have been used for record covers and included in art exhibitions.