Burnt Words is a typeface and booklet that I created together with Johannes Lang.
This digital font renders words as burnt matches. The longer the word, the longer the match. The replacement is made possible through OpenType feature code whose ligature feature looks for the length of the typed word and replaces it with one of up to ten matches of the respective word length. The specific match-glyph is determined by the word’s last character and loosely connected to the letter frequencies of the English language.
Besides dozens of burnt matches—long, short, scorched or badly burnt—the character set includes two lighters and some extra long safety matches. Untranslatable characters are automatically converted to the striking surface on the edge of the matchbox.
The sample text in this booklet contains, among other things, dozens of big and small fires, love, death, intrigue and plenty of blisters. There is a touch of humour as well. Happy reading. Don’t burn your fingers.
