Light As Typography

I was watching a series of Hillman Curtis videos today. While watching a short about one of my favorite designers, Stefan Sagmeister, the video quickly passed over a piece where Sagmeister spelt the word “for” with nothing but stacked slices of hot dogs and light. It sounds strange, but it’s incredibly beautiful. But the video focused on the piece for only a few seconds and went on the the next thing. The idea got stuck in my head though, so I felt like experimenting with it.

The idea of light comes up so often in every art form. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen it used quite the same way as the Sagmeister piece, where without the light positioned in such a way, the piece literally loses it’s meaning.

His piece without and with the right lighting:

And here is my own experimenting with the idea. Click for larger versions.

I’d love to play with this idea more when I get home for the thanksgiving break, on a much larger scale. These were just put together with magnet strips and 2 & 0 gauge plugs.