Pop-Up Letters Set the ‘Alphabet in Motion’ in Kelli Anderson’s Playful Book

As a communication designer, Kelli Anderson began her career in information design. “The act of data visualization is all about bringing facts from the abstract and numerical realm into the sphere of perception, so you can see them,” she says in a video on Kickstarter. “And I thought, why stop there? What if you could also feel and experience those facts?”

Last year, Anderson launched a remarkable, five-years-in-the-making project called Alphabet in Motion: How Letters Get Their Shape, an ABC pop-up book about typography. She spent thousands of hours researching design archives and meticulously engineering kinetic and three-dimensional letters to show how type styles have evolved through the ages.

a spread from a book about letter form, with colorful text on top reading 'Aletteris' and numerous colorful shapes in a black field below

“If you look carefully at letters, you can see a secret history of the world—from the Bronze Age to the Information Age,” Anderson says. “But because many of these methods, tools, and machines are now obsolete, this history is challenging to follow. Alphabet in Motion leverages tactile, interactive features to help clarify how letters have transformed alongside technological upheavals and shifting aesthetic moods.”

The project is composed of two conjoined, detachable books. The pop-up section includes an interactive, seven-segment display cover that changes from A to Z, 17 moveable paper elements, and hands-on activities. The accompanying 128-page section contains an essay diving into the history and concept of each pop-up, plus 300 color images from the history of type design.

Anderson’s book originally funded on Kickstarter and is now being released more widely. Secure your copy in the Colossal Shop. Follow along with her work on Instagram, and you might also enjoy another of her projects, This Book Is a Camera.

a spread from a book about letter form, showing different shapes in 2D and 3D like the letters "fi" and "ers"
a gif of a turning page of a pop-up book about letter form
a grid of eight images showing spreads from a book about letter form design
a spread from an interactive book about type design illustrating how modular parts work to form letters
designer Kelli Anderson working on a paper pop-up for her book 'Alphabet in Motion' about letter form
Anderson working on an engineered paper element for ‘Alphabet in Motion’
Pop-Up Letters Set the ‘Alphabet in Motion’ in Kelli Anderson’s Playful Book

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Pop-Up Letters Set the ‘Alphabet in Motion’ in Kelli Anderson’s Playful Book appeared first on Colossal.

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