Mastodawn

My pre-ASCII art / pictorial typography / text art archive site is out now!

People have been making ASCII-like text art on letterpress for over 300 years, building pictures entirely out of metal type, ornaments, and rule. The practice has often been dismissed as "tasteless", "wasted effort" and "nothing to do with art", which is why I think it's gone largely undocumented. So, I've spent the last 8+ years collecting ~2500 of these works into an archive. Thanks to @adelfaure, who developed the site, it's now online for everyone to browse:
https://garden-of-flowers.heikkilotvonen.com/
or read more about it at https://garden-of-flowers.heikkilotvonen.com/?essay

Roel Nieskens 6d ago

@gdc @adelfaure ping @goto80

▙ ▉ ▜▘▉ ▚ ▉6d ago

@pixelambacht @gdc @adelfaure great to see that it's finally out! Incredible work. ❤️❤️❤️

Marcin Wichary 6d ago

@gdc @adelfaure cc @glennf

Glenn Fleishman 5d ago

@mwichary @gdc @adelfaure INCREDIBLE

Institute of Diagram Studies 6d ago

@gdc @adelfaure ping @daytonamess

Ando 🔠6d ago

@diagram_studies @gdc @adelfaure INCREDIBLE

Triple ⁂6d ago

@gdc @adelfaure Oh wow, very very impressive!!!

@gdc @adelfaure This is so cool!!!

wakest likes your bugs ⁂6d ago

@gdc @adelfaure absolutely wonderful

NilaJones 6d ago

@gdc @adelfaure

Oh this is fascinating! I had no idea this existed!

Reading your post, I thought you were referring to ASCII type art made on typewriters, before computers

Now we need a website for that 😂

Typewriter art is already quite well documented. Take a look at Typewriter Art: A Modern Anthology by Barrie Tullett. One of my big inspirations, wonderful book!

D. G. Fitch 6d ago

@gdc @adelfaure holy cow I love this so much, thanks to all involved! ❤️

Julien Bidoret 5d ago

@gdc @adelfaure That's a hell of a research. Adel warned us a while ago in Pau then in les Rencontres de Lure. Now we can dive in it. Thanks a lot, to both of you.

Adel Faure ⏚🍉5d ago

@julienbidoret @gdc Lure is already in there ;) https://garden-of-flowers.heikkilotvonen.com/?page=MOTS9NJTHKDZ0

Heikki's Garden of Flowers | archive of pictorial typography

An archive of ~2500 pictorial typography and letterpress works spanning four centuries, images composed entirely of type ornaments, characters, and rule. The history of ASCII art before computers.

Indieterminacy 5d ago

@gdc So friggin' awesome @adelfaure

Fwiw, I did a #fosdem talk with Cowsay in #ascii
https://archive.fosdem.org/2022/schedule/event/minimalsyntaxes/

I never revealed it but the entire talk's storyline parallels the real adventures of Shackleton.

FOSDEM 2022 - Knowledge Management Through Minimal Syntaxes

Colin M. Ford 5d ago

@gdc @adelfaure amazing! Thank you so much for making this available online!

Dave bauer 5d ago

@gdc @adelfaure I love this kind of work and I am always impressed at the perseverance of the artists.