Atlanta | 12.15.99   

A    L I T T L E     H I S T 0 R Y

This alphabet began life in the winter of 1999 as animal tracks as rendered in type. A lovely front image took shape almost immediately.

The alphabet itself languished until late one evening in my hotel room in New York's financial district. I was playing with goldfish logos, and stumbled across the first animal made of type.

Eureka! The starfish soon followed, and then the bumblebee (my least favorite of all the animals), which pretty much killed the project for a good eight months.

I was in a hotel room in Chicago ten months later when I dug out this from my dead.projects folder, and went into a frenzy of design.

I got the next 20 animals done in four days, sandwiched between the final crunch days of a development project, ceaseless interviewing of potential designers, and assorted life-wackiness.

When I sat down and took stock, there was one animal left, and a presentation that was no longer appropriate for the whole.

After three weeks of failed designs and lousy containers, I tossed the original title, canned the ideas of automated horizontal scrolling, and tore my hair out.

One month later, I'm sitting in yet another hotel room, this time in Atlanta, and the structure of the final presentation is only now beginning to take shape.

Happy New Year ... and onto the alphabet.

Julia Hayden
feedback@julen.net