Easy as 1, 2, 3 · Seewing Chun

The characters

Every letter is a character, and every character’s personality starts with its own letter. Adventurous A strides out in walking boots and a red cap, pointing the way. Bookish b never looks up from a book. Creative C curls into a paintbrush, beret and all. The alliteration does the teaching: say the name, hear the sound, see the shape.

Adventurous A: a pink letter A with walking boots and a red cap, pointing ahead Bookish b: a round blue letter b with big glasses, reading a book Creative C: a letter C shaped as a paintbrush, with a beret and a small face

From the sketchbook

The brief, Automate, asked how automation changes design. I started from how it affects typography, from 3D type to generated typefaces, and drew letters as characters until each one had a personality. Feedback pushed the idea towards children: make it teach, and 3D print the characters so they can be held.

Sketchbook: what is my project, listing how automation could impact typography Sketchbook: first pencil drawings of A as a character, pointing, in boots Sketchbook: b drawn in coloured pencil with glasses and a book, and C as a paintbrush Sketchbook: feedback notes, make a children’s book, 3D print these characters, consider the audience

Modelling

Each letter was modelled in Blender, starting from simple rounded forms and building up the details that carry the personality: the boots and cap, the glasses, the bristles. Once the shapes worked in grey, they were coloured and posed, then animated turning on the spot.

The A modelled in grey in Blender, pointing, with its cap The finished A coloured in Blender, with its boots and red cap

Into the real world

To get the characters off the screen, I made an AR filter in Spark AR. A short piece of patch logic makes each letter bounce gently once it lands in the camera view.

Friends tried the filter wherever they were and sent their stories back: letters sitting on train seats, climbing library shelves, peering out of cupboards.

The letters out in the world through the AR filter

The letters out in the world through the AR filter

Printing

Finally the letters came back into the physical world as 3D prints, a tactile letter box for children to hold and learn from. Each model was sliced, printed with supports, then soaked in water to clear the supports away.

Sliced 3D model in the printing software on screen The 3D printer at work

A printed letter held in the hand, still white A print soaking in a glass dish of water to dissolve its supports

The finished set, in each character’s own colours: letters children can pick up and play with like building blocks, and that can live in the room with them.

The finished 3D printed letters standing in a row: pink Adventurous A pointing in brown boots and a red cap, blue Bookish b reading, and yellow Creative C as a paintbrush