I booked a laser cutting session to play around with some 3D type ideas:

As mentioned previously, I made this type puzzle piece. The idea being that it looks like a friendly little puzzle at first…

But then, it tells you to “F Off”. I messed it up slightly and it didn’t all fit which is quite funny.

I admired some of the joining of other pieces in the work shop…

And continued to experiment with creating more 3D type. This time using the letters I created from the Type Cube and also the negatives.

By cutting out a bunch of the same shapes, I’m able to stack and glue them to create a simply satisfying 3D letterform…

The pieces look pretty cool. Might paint some of them.

The cool thing about the ‘J’ though is that it almost becomes four letters at once. A J, an L, an r and the beginning of an M.

• This is a question I’ve had a for a while now; how few shapes are needed to accommodate every letter in the alphabet?

I tried scanning on the patterns from the sheets which the shapes were laser cut from.

This did not amount to something of much interest.

Type Cube Laser Cutting:

I transferred similar techniques that I’d learnt and applied them to compose a connection test of two letters from the Type Cube… Using the sketches from the Developing Practice Module I worked out the shapes needed to be able to develop a stackable piece from 3mm ply wood.

These sketches aided dev of the ‘A’.

And the ‘H’.

I then created the shapes inside illustrator ready for cutting. [‘A’ on the left and ‘H’ on the right].

Laser Cutting Session #2:

Carrying on from the prep above. I attended the laser cutting workshop and logged the process clearly, to aid me in the future:

The shapes I produced looked like this (though at the moment, wrapped in masking tape):

The pair (A and H) interlock, perfectly. Quite a satisfying bind:

Tempting to test the rest of the bottom layer.

I’ve since, glued the cubes together as a type cube test…

Extremely satisfying.