Missing Letters • Torin Curtin Savala, Fifth Grade

INTRO BY HANDWRITTEN

We wish more people would be child-like (not to be confused with childish). Our very tools of expression can sometimes be our steepest limitations, which is why the poem below by Torin Curtin Savala, a fifth grader from California, struck us right in the heart. Torin takes to the keyboard to express the difficulty he experiences on paper. Gripping a pen and forming letters does not come easily. But Torin meets this challenge with creativity and courage. Unable to read what he wrote? Highlight each line and see for yourself the invisible letters he faces every day.

Missing words,

Oh no, words are missing.

Disappearing.

Gone

Ahhhh.

Tiny blank spots nowhere to be seen.

Where did they go?

Not here, not there.

Maybe in your hair?

Missing words are everywhere.

So clear and near.

But to us they are nowhere to be seen.

Maybe they are hiding in beans.

But to us they can not be seen.

 

Torin Curtin Savala

I Weigh Such Questions Whenever I Start a Cutout

The third installment of Bina Vivien Santos' exploration, Not Your Average Ordinary. 

BY BINA VIVIEN SANTOS

Just as fun as it is to play detective, it is equally fun to intentionally create meaning through design. As a graphic designer, I work with composition and typography, finding creative ways to marry the two into something significant. The same applies to my calligraphy cutouts, however without the convenient font library at my disposal. Instead, it falls to me to imagine and to create the perfect font. I spend a lot of time sketching out the word or quotation over and over and over, testing out serifs, weights, cursive, shapes, etc. I have in a sense created my own internal font library of styles that I frequently use, but I do try my best to branch out to the new and different, especially if it better complements the words. Is the quotation a proud statement meant for serifed capital letters, or is it delicate and dreamily flows in cursive loops? Or is it passionate and emotional like thickly, messily painted lines with imperfections? I weigh such questions whenever I start a cutout, or even when I come across an interesting bit of text. It’s a great creative exercise for crowded subway rides.

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