Calligram Designers

Type your word, draw your picture and get a calligram in few seconds with TypeDrawing with just a touch. It is so easy and fun! TypeDrawing is an application for iPhone and iPod Touch. Like calligrams, drawing with letters is what the application is all about. I was amazed the first time I tried it on my husband's iPod Touch! - I typed the sentence, Everything is all right, right now. - I chose a white background paper - I selected the font style, its size, color and opacity - and then just let the intuition flow and drew a vase of flowers, just with my index finger! Then - I saved it in an iPhoto Album - went into iPhoto and sent it directly to my husband as a sign of gratitude for introducing to me such an interesting and fun application. And all within few minutes. On Flickr there is a TypeDrawing Group Pool and it's clear how many people are enjoying and using their creativity with this tool. I am exploring it daily and I am finding it truly amazing. It allows an entirely...

Guillaume Apollinaire created the calligram Le bouquet for the catalog cover of his friends’ art exhibition: Peintures de Léopold Survage. Dessins et aquarelles d’Irène Lagut. - Paris, 21-31 janvier 1917. The original publication seems to be a very rare treasure for visual poetry: 12 calligrams, printed in facsimile after drawings by Apollinaire, never before published. More info: - Apollinaire, visual poetry, and art criticism by Willard Bohn - ILAB - LILA

Finally spring arrived showing its first splendor with the forsythia! I was walking this afternoon and saw the yellow forsythia around the corner... it reminded me the famous concret poem by Mary Ellen Solt, Forsythia, composed in 1965 and published in 1966. “The design of Forsythia is made from the letters of the name of the flowering shrub and their equivalents in the Morse Code. The text is part of the design.” ~ Mary Ellen Solt " Forsythia by Mary Ellen Solt was typographically concretized by John Dearstyne. In the introduction to Flowers in Concrete , George Zadek writes: “Traditionally the typographer has given form and order to words, thus serving both the writer and the reader. His problem is mainly one of clarity of communication, literary meaning, and hopefully aesthetic contribution to the art of the printed page. When publishing concrete poetry, it is sometimes difficult to draw a line between the contributions, as well as the final responsibilities, of the poet and...

by John Ecko This poem was one of the most challenging calligrams to date for me. I was fascinated by the beauty of love found in so many different written languages of the world and was inspired by the Japanese expression for it. Though there is so much diversity out there, Love is still the universal language and hope of mankind. I hope you enjoy this visual poem from my new book " Signs of Life " and please feel free to visit my visual poetry site at http://eckovision.wordpress.com/ to see more of my work and to find out more about my book. Thank you for listening to my words and seeing a little of what I see.