Dutch designer Jelte van Abbema won a competition in 2009 with his design print using bacteria in petri dishes called “Symbiosis”. He photographed the bacteria through many stages, from growth to death. This resulted in the letters changing shape and colour as the bacteria grew. Starting with the dark blue then moving to amber. I really enjoy the sans serif font he chose for the experiment, using simple shapes to create the letters and how they are photographed is nice as all of the letters look uniform in the circle of the petri dish outline.
“A promising marriage between art and science, based on in-depth research. This technical invention creates new images and forms.”
Similar to Abbema, Ori Elisar, a Jerusalem based designer created a typeface that made use of petri-dish to create letterforms in hebrew for his “Living language” project in 2015. Similar to mine, he stated in the interview that it will not be a completely functional typeface. Elisar sees it as an “alternative to typography’s occasional perception as the most dry and boring field of design”. Basically a bit of fun.
“Using my research, experiments and results, I am hoping to question nature, culture, character and language with some new theories of my own,”
I really like the idea behind this using ink and natural bacteria to create the typeface, however as previously stated i dont think it is very easy to use in practice, but the idea behind it is great.
