Helvetica Alpha Too

Surface designer, Sarah Milton, brings her unique take on typography to the windows of Printer of Dreams in London in the current exhibit, Helvetica Folded. Running for two weeks, the window display features large scale posters of her deconstructed Helvetica characters created via a series of origami folds which can be purchase here. Currently based in East London, Milton’s wallpapers and artist prints capture her fascination with the process of distorting and abstracting type and have won her many awards such as the Timorous Beasties Award from the Wallpaper History Society in 2011.

As the press release states: “Beginning with only a chosen font, Sarah prints particular characters onto small squares and then methodically begins an unplanned journey of distortion via a series of origami folds, until she has created and carefully composed an entirely alien pattern. The result here is a bold and rhythmic collection that playfully questions the viewer to trace what is legible and what is not?

‘Helvetica Alpha Too’ depicts the alphabet from A to Z. Each letter has been distorted using origami paper folds, and is mixed with textures collected directly by Sarah from the print room.

‘Helvetica Trace’ is constructed out of characters, such as asterisks, brackets and semicolons, which have been abstracted using origami folds on tracing paper. The print is a direct reflection of the original folds creating the illusion of folded paper.

‘Flat Zag’ is constructed out of the numbers 0-9 which have been distorted using origami paper folds. Each fold has been pieced back together to create a subtle zig zag effect.”

Helvetica Trace

Flat Zag