Outdoor Alphabet

Whether you’re gluing together a ransom note or working on the Great American Novel, you won’t get far without the alphabet. You may not know this, but close to 100% of words are made up of letters of the alphabet. And yet how often do you stop and think, golly, aren’t letters nice? How often do you even really look at letters you see on the street?

Today (and probably for the next few days) you’re going to. Look at letters, that is. That’s because you’ll be collecting your very own alphabet, one you can treasure for years to come. As a side effect, you might also come to appreciate some of your town’s fine signage.

Traditionally, the alphabet starts with A, so that’s where we’ll begin. Head out onto the street and find yourself a letter A. Found one? Right: don’t steal it (I know it’s tempting, now you’ve seen how lovely it is). Take a photograph. Then look for a letter B. After that (you guessed it!), you want a letter C. If you’re only up to D and you see a particularly choice letter L, then go right ahead and photograph it, we won’t tell anyone.

Now you’ve got your alphabet, what are you going to do with it? You could use your imagination, or you could do as you're told. If you’ve taken Polaroids, you’ve just made yourself an art installation: spend the next few months convincing someone to show it. If you’ve used digital, then you’ve made yourself an alphabet you can use on your web page, on your mum's next birthday card or as the basis of that ransom note we mentioned earlier.