Play It as It Lays

@t.i.n.y.studio
I think the word "Work" perfectly sits within the "word that comes to mind when we're in a certain space" category, and ironically, that certain space might be everywhere. In this late stage of capitalism, everything leads to work. Since the day we're going to school, we're been prepped to be eligible to work. All the promises from technology that invents faster, and more efficient working inventions only lead us to having more work. With remote working on the rise, I'm afraid it now makes EVERYWHERE feels like an office.

We were playing around with certain symbols and visual elements that are familiar in music, art, design, and fashion, to shape together the word "work" and make a point about no matter what you do, you'll be thinking of work. It's not a happy piece but I genuinely wish that we can stay together as a community to at least make work a safe & enjoyable activity to do.

@liiiu.baa
The word I chose is “Roots.” I recently attended an exhibition called "Soil", where artists explored themes of soil and roots through print, video, ceramics, and fabric design. Earlier this year, I also found myself revisiting post-metal, goth, and dark folk music—genres I frequently listened to in the past and that had a significant influence on me. This fusion of subcultural and environmental roots became the central inspiration for my artwork.

@liiiu.baa
The word I chose is “Roots.” I recently attended an exhibition called "Soil", where artists explored themes of soil and roots through print, video, ceramics, and fabric design. Earlier this year, I also found myself revisiting post-metal, goth, and dark folk music—genres I frequently listened to in the past and that had a significant influence on me. This fusion of subcultural and environmental roots became the central inspiration for my artwork.

@lad_boo
Verb: Skip
Action: Skipping
Reason: I love skipping sometimes when I run for no reason, it fills me up with excitement and makes me feel like I'm really fast. I also like skipping classes and functions I don't really want to go to, what a freeing experience :)

@lad_boo
Verb: Skip
Action: Skipping
Reason: I love skipping sometimes when I run for no reason, it fills me up with excitement and makes me feel like I'm really fast. I also like skipping classes and functions I don't really want to go to, what a freeing experience :)

@fabianmaierbode
My artwork is based on a verb that describes my favorite action/move: running -> (to) run
— Running is a huge passion of mine which a handle nearly with the same amount of perfection like my work practice
— I love moving outdoors through remote places of nature while running
— The artwork shows the process of a hand lettered „tag“ to digitalization with corrections and digital end result

@lyn.stupidgraphics
a word that conjures the image of a river lazily winding its way through a landscape, carving its path with no hurry, no straight lines, only gentle curves and unexpected turns. It speaks to the beauty of wandering without purpose, of finding meaning in the journey rather than the destination. To me, "meander" is to embrace the poetic rhythm of life, to flow with its currents, and to trust that every bend holds its own quiet revelation. It’s a dance with time, a whisper of patience, and a reminder that sometimes the most profound beauty lies in the unhurried, unscripted moments.

@shen_hou_
Inspired by the Korean film A Decision to Leave, I reflect on my journey as a foreigner living abroad, much like the lead actress. While we share the challenge of adapting to a new world, her story feels vibrant and extraordinary, making my own life seem dull and ordinary in comparison.

@shen_hou_
Inspired by the Korean film A Decision to Leave, I reflect on my journey as a foreigner living abroad, much like the lead actress. While we share the challenge of adapting to a new world, her story feels vibrant and extraordinary, making my own life seem dull and ordinary in comparison.

@shen_hou_
As a Taiwanese living in the Netherlands, I’ve started learning Dutch. Yet, the phrases I use most often are ‘Dank je wel’ and ‘Ik weet het niet’—thank you and I don’t know. It’s a bit embarrassing, but I’ve come to realize that the more I learn, the more I find myself saying, 'I don’t know.'

@shen_hou_
I don't know. In Zhuyin, "ㄨㄛˇ ㄅㄨˋ ㄓ ㄉㄠˋ" 
As a Taiwanese living in the Netherlands, I’ve started learning Dutch. Yet, the phrases I use most often are ‘Dank je wel’ and ‘Ik weet het niet’—thank you and I don’t know. It’s a bit embarrassing, but I’ve come to realize that the more I learn, the more I find myself saying, 'I don’t know.'

 @333333.22

Anonymity:the situation in which someone's name is not given or known. 
Anonymity is a state.
Anonymity is our bane.

我匿名的生活在伦敦。在这里，我似乎很少使用我的官方名字ying。在工作场所中我的名字是Charlotte，社交 场所里我的名字是32。总会有人在得到一个数字的答案之后问我为什么你的名字是一个数字或者是进一步问: 那么你的real name是什么? 在我说完Charlotte之后人们便不会进一步询问，但其实Charlotte也不是我的真 名。Charlotte是第一次上英语课时老师给我取的。32是我第一次去club后发现人们都只会告诉我他们的昵称， 于是我将我的大学学号32成为了我的名字。我更喜欢32而不是Charlotte，Charlotte只是方便English speaker 称呼的一个名字。但实际上我更喜欢ying，ying是无限接近我的真名却又带有匿名性质的名字，我的母语是中文

I live anonymously in London, where I rarely use my official name, Ying. At work, I go by Charlotte, and in social settings, my name is 32. People often ask, after hearing a number as my name, “Why is your name a number?” or further, “What is your real name?” When I tell them it’s Charlotte, they usually don’t ask anything more. But in fact, Charlotte isn’t my real name either. It was given to me by my teacher during my first English class. As for 32, I started using it after my first time at a club, where I noticed that people only shared their nicknames. I then turned my university ID number, 32, into my name. I prefer 32 over Charlotte. Charlotte is merely a convenient name for English speakers to use. But in truth, I like Ying more. Ying is the closest to my real name, yet it carries a sense of anonymity. After all, my native language is Chinese.


从 20 世纪 90 年代中期开始的十年间，Active Worlds 一直是互联网上最流行的用户创建虚拟环境。这是一个 由匿名用户构建的虚拟世界，一个匿名的互联网社交，一场匿名的幻想。一个带有社交性质的开放式虚拟空间 是最能体现匿名的功能性:我们通过匿名来隐藏自己身份，甚至，我们将那一点点没有办法隐藏的个人细节重 塑，形成一个新的匿名自我。

“个人在某些方面比以往任何时候都更自由地塑造或重塑自己。这与自我作为一种商品和需要加工的对象出现 有关，就像人们在一块土地上工作或雕刻一块木头一样”(Gary t. marx 2001)。

For a decade starting in the mid-1990s, Active Worlds stood as the most popular user-created virtual environment on the internet. It was a virtual world built by anonymous users, a space for anonymous social interactions, and an anonymous fantasy. An open virtual space with a social dimension best embodies the functionality of anonymity: we use anonymity to conceal our identities, and even those personal details we cannot fully hide are reshaped to form a new, anonymous self.

“Individuals are freer than ever to shape or reshape themselves in certain respects. This ties to the emergence of the self as a commodity and an object to be worked on, just as one would work on a plot of land or carve a block of wood. (Gary T. Marx, 2001).


Source
Lost Zone: Hiking the Dawn of Metaverse By Andrea Belosi and Joana Rafael
Things got moralistic fast. Dataman published ampolemic in The New World Times, "Anonymity Is our Bane." A user could pick any avatar they want, but from that point on, consistency is needed. You arenwho you are said to be. He was different. That's what impressed me. Not his big dick swagger. Not the obnoxious moniker. "King Punisher" was a jumping-off point — identity, putty in his hands. He had found a way to take the name of anybody. It seemed like a good deal at the time: He taught me the skill, and I helped in his cons. We'd disguise ourselves as Dataman, The Protagonist (any of the "good guys") and squeeze users for their login info. Generally we said this was standard protocol for "cooperative building projects." Sometimes we pulled an explanation out of thin air. When it worked, we could sneak into users' accounts and destroy their AlphaWorld properties. A few months in, things fell apart. King "realized the error of his ways” , took a new name ("Pharaoh"), and helped found our first Police Department. That's when I joined Sherwood.
   
Did I just catch a glimpse of the public that the political thinker Hannah Arendt refers to when she writes about a multitude of spectators with manifold sensibilities unrelated to our own? That public that pulls us out of the 'uncertain, shadowy kind of existence' of a private life, and allows our lives to become concrete? 'The presence of others who see what we see and hear what we hear assures us of the reality of the world and ourselves,' she writes.' Her's is the kind of public we never encounter on social media, nor much in real life, where we engage, live, work and discuss politics almost exclusively with "people like us" Are OCM and MV like me?


@huahua__lee
My favourite action.
Wait and see.

I am lazy, I separate my hand and my brain.
I make stuff without thinking and let the brain wait and see what will happen.

人 means a human being in Chinese.
目 means an eye in Chinese.
目人目 is a kaomoji that looks dumb.
This is a stand alone complex waiting and seeing.
*A stand alone complex refers to a phenomenon where individuals act in similar ways without direct coordination, creating the illusion of an organized movement when none actually exists.

@uu.uazang @exposuresunderneath
When I think about the word and my thoughts on the concept, I imagine it as a systematic idea that can be unpacked through words, dimensions, and layers. I collected various visual materials and collaged them into a single poster/informational typography design. My creative process is quite intuitive, focusing on jotting down ideas that come to mind as I attempt to visually explore the word impermanence.

@meimei_yuguo
'Extreme and non-extreme of Bézier' the word was the first word in my mind, and overall mentioned in The Type's article and Albert-Jan Pool's brochure about the history of round sans serif typefaces and the development of FF DIN Round, the fun story about the earliest invention of Bézier that comes from the story of the Switchback Railway and calculation of Spinnkurve. It's something I always have headaches with while making my rounded type, also the technical issue that should be solved, thinking in terms of extreme back-and-forth, that fonts should be readable and have a character of their own.


Oko rounded test sheet explored shapes and forms of rounded type, following an 8x8 grid, 6x6 grid for x-height, 8x8 for cap height, and an additional 2 grids for ascender and descender. The Oko rounded test sheet did not seek the anatomy of typography, as it is a digital test sheet with kerning and diacritics, looking for the possibility of including decimals, punctuation, symbols, and marks. Draws inspiration for my upcoming type family which will be open-sourced soon. 

@yezhang_tomato
queer is ecology
This is a concept recently come to my mind. I was very interested in Queer Ecology last year, after I did a lot research and share this theory to other people, I find that this theory has been proving to the mainstream scientific community that “queer vision ” is necessary，that's certainly true, but I can't help but wonder about the ultimate vision of this theory - which is that there is no such thing as queer ecology.
queer is nature, is the ecology itself, when there is no “queer vision” in ecology, the ecology will be ecology.
You can see that I used some centuries-old biological illustrations as inspiration for this experiment, and created grids with cell slice diagrams to let the font grow freely.

“强”。The Chinese character “强” means robust. My Chinese name is Qiang, which conveys a beautiful meaning. It is a widespread name, shared by hundreds of millions of Chinese men. When I was 17, I got my first ID card and was told that my real name was Qiang Qiang—two “强” characters. This had been hidden for 17 years. Although the two “强” characters are identical, to me, they are different. Therefore, I gave these two identical characters different visual sensations.

@ssstrongx2
“强”。The Chinese character “强” means robust. My Chinese name is Qiang, which conveys a beautiful meaning. It is a widespread name, shared by hundreds of millions of Chinese men. When I was 17, I got my first ID card and was told that my real name was Qiang Qiang—two “强” characters. This had been hidden for 17 years. Although the two “强” characters are identical, to me, they are different. Therefore, I gave these two identical characters different visual sensations.

@dongnni.liu
I’ve been looking into Le Corbusier’s work lately, and the Unité d’Habitation really caught my interest. It’s basically the prototype for modern high-rises, organizing living spaces into functional units for efficiency. But looking at it now, after decades of development, this obsession with efficiency feels a bit eerie. It makes me wonder—if society keeps running like a machine, will our own biology one day be streamlined too, keeping only the essential parts we need to function as social “units”?

@dongnni.liu
I’ve been looking into Le Corbusier’s work lately, and the Unité d’Habitation really caught my interest. It’s basically the prototype for modern high-rises, organizing living spaces into functional units for efficiency. But looking at it now, after decades of development, this obsession with efficiency feels a bit eerie. It makes me wonder—if society keeps running like a machine, will our own biology one day be streamlined too, keeping only the essential parts we need to function as social “units”?

@asgarnish
Wild garden is the place where I am currently living in Shanghai. The apartment itself is pretty typical—just another old, damp flat you’d find in the city center—but it’s got a name that adds a bit of charm. While I’m not really in love with the place, I've developed a quirky fondness for its poetic name. Inspired by 'Wild Garden,' I set out to craft a concrete poetry of sorts, transforming the letters of its name into a rather unconventional security fence for my little sanctuary.  This fence, while hardly fortified (and perhaps unnecessary in the safety of China), serves its purpose well enough, allowing energies to ebb and flow freely. It's an open invitation for the gentle breeze to wander in and invigorate my mind and my garden, nurturing both in this delightful little patch I call home.

@ikuulikki
PERSONA, 
YOKOO'S TOILET (橫尾式便所), 
YOKOO'S TOILET is a sealed chamber with curved mirrors, where one can release energy while unveiling the manifold personas of the self.

@tuuong
When you first step into a new place/environment, 'Endure' really sums up that beginning bit where you're just trying to hang in there and get your bearings. It’s all about toughing it out until you start to feel a bit more at home and comfortable. Once you get past that initial 'nervous' phase, though, it shifts to 'Experience.' That’s when you start really noticing what makes this place cool and different. It's like, first you survive, and then you start to enjoy and take it all in.

My projects typically begin with a core concept that guides the entire creative process. I like to combine traditional design methods with a digital touch. This starts with sketching on paper, then moving to any digital software that feels right.

@tuuong
When you first step into a new place/environment, 'Endure' really sums up that beginning bit where you're just trying to hang in there and get your bearings. It’s all about toughing it out until you start to feel a bit more at home and comfortable. Once you get past that initial 'nervous' phase, though, it shifts to 'Experience.' That’s when you start really noticing what makes this place cool and different. It's like, first you survive, and then you start to enjoy and take it all in.

My projects typically begin with a core concept that guides the entire creative process. I like to combine traditional design methods with a digital touch. This starts with sketching on paper, then moving to any digital software that feels right.

@wild_deerr
“You will never find a stone without a place in the world.”
From The Threadbare Coat by Thomas A. Clark
And that is why I love stones.

@wild_deerr
“You will never find a stone without a place in the world.”
From The Threadbare Coat by Thomas A. Clark
And that is why I love stones.

@wild_deerr
In the liminal space between wakefulness and dreams, I always find myself entering a place.
Before me, a dark thicket and a stream glimmering with the faint light of fireflies.
Vines and branches weave around a hidden door—one I have never fully seen.
Yet I always move slowly toward it, passing through, and entering a dream.

@wild_deerr
Bubbles blown into the square, swelling into grandeur.
The wind brushes the liquid, wrapping the air,
lifting them into a fleeting dance in the sky.

@wild_deerr
I like to create secrets, ones only I know.
I dislike loud shouting.
Whisper is my way.
I wonder, have you heard it?

@wild_deerr
from the book The Threadbare Coat  by Thomas A. Clark

A poem from The Threadbare Coat by Thomas A. Clark

@wild_deerr
Once I was a deer,
stepping under trees,
my form always broken
by lights and shadows.

@wild_deerr
Shift to this, shift to that,
switch between tongues, switch between tools.
Back and forth, back and forth,
a monotone tap dance of transitions.

"At that instant, Macabéa felt a violent nausea in her stomach; She almost wanted to vomit. What she wanted to vomit did not belong to the body; she wanted to vomit something brilliant. A thousand-pointed star."
The Hour of the Star, by Clarice Lispector

“Don't you think people are formed by the landscape they grow up in?”
Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold 

“Don't you think people are formed by the landscape they grow up in?”
Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold 

source missing cuz of fading memory
the only left note writes: p23

When I think about space, I think about somewhere in everyday life where I have never been to. I thought about the fridge. And when I think about space, for reasons I cannot name, I think of figs. From the tree to the fridge, from the fridge in the market to the one in my house, these sweet and seasonal things remain. It is the staff dressed in black that changes the scene behind them.

When I think about space, I think about somewhere in everyday life where I have never been to. I thought about the fridge. And when I think about space, for reasons I cannot name, I think of figs. From the tree to the fridge, from the fridge in the market to the one in my house, these sweet and seasonal things remain. It is the staff dressed in black that changes the scene behind them.

A day with xuan (highly condensed verb version):
input + work + eat + design + climb + cook + sleep

A day with xuan (highly condensed verb version):
input + work + eat + design + climb + cook + sleep

@elsy.baoo
I chose the word "Magnetic",the title, from  by Wendy Cope, one of my favourite poems, because it beautifully captures the joy found in the small, simple pleasures of everyday life. This poem reminds me of how moments of quiet happiness can hold extraordinary meaning.

I used animation to bring my imagination of this word to life, primarily using pencil and colored pencils as my materials.

@lilyuym
This typographic work was created specifically for a space: home. At the moment, I’m living in a small, cozy apartment in the heart of Milan with two roommates who make me feel comfortable and safe in this space. I designed this typography to be displayed on the wall of our kitchen, as a constant affirmation. These words embody our aura, our attitude, and our spirit. Reading and seeing them every day, especially first thing in the morning, helps set our mood and mindset for the day. The visual print is meant to bring to the wall what we consider the spice of life, blending into the physical space of our home, surrounded by a collage of posters that remind us to smile, have fun, and dance.

@lilyuym
This typographic work was created specifically for a space: home. At the moment, I’m living in a small, cozy apartment in the heart of Milan with two roommates who make me feel comfortable and safe in this space. I designed this typography to be displayed on the wall of our kitchen, as a constant affirmation. These words embody our aura, our attitude, and our spirit. Reading and seeing them every day, especially first thing in the morning, helps set our mood and mindset for the day. The visual print is meant to bring to the wall what we consider the spice of life, blending into the physical space of our home, surrounded by a collage of posters that remind us to smile, have fun, and dance.

@snailwinggg  @kellieieos
There is a cute little winged serpent named Flyte who is extremely perfectionist and desperately wants to trim his feathers, believing that she is a freak for having wings.

@snailwinggg  @kellieieos
There is a cute little winged serpent named Flyte who is extremely perfectionist and desperately wants to trim his feathers, believing that she is a freak for having wings.