FEATURE
Five projects that had to design a notation system before they could write a single line of copy.
These five pieces all hit a wall before copywriting even began. A font that fuses Hindi script and Roman letters through shared sounds. A book collecting names for female body parts that had no words in the Zapotec language. An address system that divides the entire globe into 3-meter squares, each assigned three words. A system that uses eight eye movements to convey fifty different messages. Subtitles that tell speakers apart using color and motion. In each case, where no usable language or notation existed, the people behind the work simply built one themselves. There was no fair way to rank these by how deep the gap they filled actually was, so they're arranged instead by when they were released. From a font in 2012 to subtitles in 2025, this is a lineup spanning thirteen years.
5 articles
MINISTRY OF TOURISM GOVT. OF INDIA | 2012
In India, mixing Hindi and English together into "Hinglish" is just a normal part of how people talk. So someone decided to turn that into a font.
ALWAYS | 2015
If you don't have the words, you can't describe your symptoms. If you can't describe your symptoms, you can't get diagnosed. The indigenous women of Oaxaca had no words to talk about their own bodies.
WHAT3WORDS | 2015
It's not an ad. But it won the Grand Prix at Cannes. In 2015, Nick Law, president of the Innovation jury, called it "the best body of work I've ever seen." That product was what3words.
BLINK TO SPEAK - | 2018
A language made for people who can only move their eyes. Even when ALS or a spinal injury takes away control of the rest of the body, the eyes keep moving until the very end. This gave those eyes words to speak with.
Chicago Deaf Society | 2025
From 1971 to 2025, captions were always white. Nobody ever questioned it. Learning this story, I felt ashamed of my own lazy thinking.
Fictional People Started Working
Five people who don't exist — and reality answered back anyway.
Ads That Reached Into the Law
Breaking rules, slipping through loopholes, rewriting statutes — eight ads, ordered by how far they reached.
Alone, You Can't Reach It
An ad that isn't finished until one more person shows up.
What Was Already There Became the Medium
From chalk to banknotes: 11 media nobody had to buy
The Product Is Nowhere to Be Seen
How choosing not to show became the boldest statement of all
Putting 'We're Broke' Right at the Center of the Idea
Six ads that turned a shortfall into the raw material itself