You don't need textbooks and freshly sharpened pencils to celebrate September's back-to-school attitude. Whether you love antique fonts, modern art, or metallic decor, we've found the best typography-inspired accents to suit your style. From customized vintage coasters to eclectic wall art, here are 10 unique pieces to add wordy charm to your space.
One of the hottest trends in home decor this year, typography can instantly update any room — and this is a trend that we hope will last the test of time! Pillows, decals, art, and prints are just a few ways incorporate typography into your tot's decor. Mix it up a bit by adding a modern typographic print among nontraditional pieces or vice versa. Check out these 10 pieces of art for some inspiration.
Check out Spanish design group Atipo's beautiful tribute to some of typography's most iconic fonts. Fontface is a photo series depicting models with their literal faces painted as four typefaces, including Helvetica (of course) and Caslon. The gorgeous making-of video shows the entire creation process, which gives you a sense of just how much time and talent face paint like this takes. To see all the finished face paint, just keep reading.
Check out these beautiful city maps, created using nothing but type. These gorgeous prints definitely satisfy my inner font geek, and they aren't bad to look at, either. The collection of three Typographic Maps features Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago with Manhattan and Washington DC on the way.
During the printing process, each letter was manually placed, a process that took "hundreds of hours to complete for each map." The result: intricate and beautiful depictions of each featured city. Poster-size prints of each map are available for $30.
Like what you see? Click through the slideshow for more detailed images of these beautiful maps.
Remember the childhood game Memory, where you had to match two like tiles by remembering where they were and flipping them over? Now the game has been reimagined for font nerds and designers! The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog Memory Game ($25) features 50 cards and 25 different typefaces; the aim, much like the Memory game of yore, is to match the two like fonts.
Find out more about the cards when you read more.
As you know, I'm a big fan of trendy typography. From bookshelves to letterpress posters, there are plenty of wonderful designs to choose from.
In this house tour from Hus & Hem magazine, homeowners Robert and Sofie added word-accented bedding and wall art to their bedroom. I love the utilitarian look of these elements — the duvet cover actually reads "duvet cover." It reminds me, in a good way, of the generic food packaging on Repo Man.
Do you decorate with words in your home?
A bona fide typography nerd, I gravitate toward alphabet motifs in all shapes and forms. From throw pillows emblazoned with letters to quotation mark bookends, the typography trend is one that I wholeheartedly support.
So imagine how excited I was to discover this Aakkoset Bookcase by Ugandan-born designer Lincoln Kayiwa, which uses each letter's form as a nook to hold books, CDs, magazines, accessories, and more. It can also be left empty and used as a room divider for open-plan living spaces or studios. Better yet, if you're not enthused about rouge, it can be ordered in black, blue, green, orange, violet, white, or yellow. I think it would be terrific in a playroom or elementary school. Is it too modern for you or do you love it too?
Confession: I am a huge font nerd. And like most vintage geek collectors, I am always on the hunt for old timey tech. While I have a pretty decent collection of vintage typewriters, I knew the only way to pay proper respect to my passion for typography was to learn letterpress printing.
After taking months of workshops and making my own set of unique greeting cards, I finally felt like I conquered the massive machines and their rows of movable type. As a thank-you, my guy surprised me with a beautiful letterpress necklace ($75) I'd been coveting from Brooklyn-based jewelry designer, Erica Weiner.
Font nerds, get excited! The necklace is an actual piece of movable type from a hand-cranked Vandercook Proof Press. The type was saved from being melted down, plated in gold, and hung from a brass chain. You can order a single letter of the alphabet or go the route of my guy, and get two initials for you and your beau. If you're not big into gold, don't worry — silver is an option too.
While the typography trend continues to truck along, a new trend of decorating with letters, often consonants and syllables from vintage signs, has arisen. Personally, I find it kind of cheesy to decorate with initials — a big "C.S." on my wall is just not my style. But I'd happily put a less self-referential letter in my home if it were eye-catching like this vibrant red T. Putting a letter in your home, even if it doesn't mean anything to you, is a great way to celebrate all of the serifs, shapes, and ligatures that make typography such an interesting art. Do you decorate with letters?
This month, at Paris's trade interior design show Maison & Objet, UK designer Andrew Martin, who's known for his Union Jack motif furniture, showed off some other, bold prints, including this chair upholstered in designer Martin Waller’s new God Bless America fabric.
Martin and Waller aren't the first (or the last) designers to jump on the typography and graffiti bandwagon. There are a lot of really great interior design finds out there right now that display words, graffiti, or a combination of both. So, let's go Trend Hunting!
Here's how it works. First, join my group Trend Hunting. Then, when you track down a cool graffiti or typography product, bookmark it and tag it with the phrase Wordy Home Finds, and then save it in the Trend Hunting group. You can read this post for full directions on how to start your Trend Hunting mission, and here's a detailed explanation of bookmarks from GeekSugar.
