by Ilan Garibi
Edited by Jason Ku
diagrams
low intermediate


Click on picture for diagrams.

Reading Kasahara's "The Art and Wonder of Origami", I discovered the Folds of Beauty, symmetric folds that were embraced by Froebel to be taught in his newly inaugurated kindergartens (founded in 1837). Trying my hand with that, I realized I can make many new designs, and even some asymmetric ones, moving between two models; the two upper flaps are folded as in the first, the lower two are folded as in the other.

Many years ago I discovered the amazing works of M. C. Escher. The illogical, puzzling and unrealistic nature of his works amazed me. And most of all, I thought his signature to be a real act of genius. I quickly completed the ABC, adding all the rest to the original three letters; M, C and E. So now, with both MCE font and asymmetric Froebel folds in my head, I came to see the resemblance between the two - the constraining square. From here the road to an Escher/Froebel/Garibi font was very short. Here I present only A, B and C. If you enjoyed making those, you can buy and download the complete A to Z diagrams from The Source.

-Ilan Garibi

Comments

October 23, 2012 - 3:54pm annag

I would have folded the inside corners of the letter 'C' back as valley folds rather than mountains, so as to make a more even outline for the letter. That is, it's currently a diamond (twisted square) inside a square; I would rather make the inner square's sides parallel to the outer's. That said, this is a clever origami font (or a typeface, perhaps, due to its existence across various sizes). I particularly enjoyed the extension of the "Escher Alphabet" (or "MCE font"), though the thickness of some lines (eg, in the L and T) bothered me, as this seems a bit less elegant than in the original 3 letters, "MCE". As I cannot, however, think immediately of a better solution, I commend the author/designer for a simply-folded set of letters. Next, considering that Escher was Dutch, I would consider making the ligature/dipthong 'IJ' ('ij'), which is often considered one letter in Dutch, sometimes interchangeable with the letter 'Y'.