Karen To set out to explore and rebirth The Dead Words. Through these typographic studies, she aims to rediscover and interpret words from a modern perspective, molding the letters and words into a subtle or literal representation of their definitions.

Over the centuries, "thousands of English words have been created, modified, and removed," and all of the words she explores were once regularly used in the English language, while today, many of them are omitted from the average English dictionary. Through her lettered illustrations she hopes to bring light to the forgotten words and meanings before they are lost forever, through both traditionally inspired letters and modern illustrations.

Her favorite aspect of the project is the encouragement of collective spirit with other designers. When she gets stuck on visualizing a word, she finds that by enlisting help and interpretation from other talented designers, the dead words can find a voice as a typographic piece where they might otherwise have remained silent.

If you knew all of these definitions without the image hints, please accept my sincerest props.

Some other hand-picked posts you might enjoy on our Design Blog:

Typographic Expressions: Poster Designs from KavanStudio
Typographic Illustrations and Lettering by Jeff Rogers
Textured Designs and Illustration by Justin Mezzell