A Letter from Paris

A Letter from Paris

I have a ritual I do when my creativity is blocked. When I need to design a new logo or website and nothing comes to mind, I will venture out and search for letters in the alphabet. My rules are that I must first find the A then work myself down to the Z. It might be a branch in a park that comes off the main trunk forming a V, or it could be the actual letter, like the famous V in Varsity – Atlanta’s most famous hot dog stand.

It’s an exercise I learned in art class in college. If forces you to see things that you’d normally miss in your everyday life. It trains the minds eye to be aware of detail, form, textures, and oftentimes, sound and smell.

Although Paris is hardly a place where one might suffer from blocked creativity, I went through my ritual this morning, just to ensure I was seeing and absorbing all there is to experience in this magnificent town.

Here are a few of my letters, some off shop and street signs, others from motorcycles and menu boards.

Enjoy…

{ letters on the street of Paris ~ all near the Bastille }

10 Responses

  1. Brilliant idea! Will use this myself, but am certainly passing this down to my Kate…although, being ‘almost’ 13 now, I’ll probably hear something like duh, doesn’t everybody know this trick?lol xoxo

  2. Brilliant – my creativity is often blocked! I’m loving reading about your Paris adventures, even though envy is running out my ears.

  3. Cool. I just read an article on Fast Company about a free iPhone app called Fontly, dedicated to preserving typographic treasures. Of course using it to find your letters would be cheating as far as this exercise goes!

  4. You did get something from our years at Auburn! As I remember our focus was not always academic! If you had just shared that little trick with me, I could have gotten even more out of my college experience! Think I will begin today getting more out of my present experience… Next time I am in Atlanta we can try this together! Shan

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