hongtao zhou extrudes typography into 3D-printed textscape

hongtao zhou extrudes typography into 3D-printed textscape
(above) document of new york city’s central park 
all images courtesy of hongtao zhou

hongtao zhou has created ‘textscape’, 3D documents to re-emphasize printing in the contemporary technological world. the artist explains that ‘printing technology was first created in accent china to reproduce text using woodblocks, however today’s definition had been widely adopted in 3D printing, an additive process more often to create objects instead of duplicate text.’

visual demonstration of a 3D printed document versus a regular printer

the project generates letter-sized compositions to visually profile the subject matter of the passages. these tactile pieces make reading process interactive for general audience or blind people to read as sources of knowledge as well as art. furthering the comprehension, the series includes variations of braille, different language characters, calligraphies, and number systems to bridge the typography and its appearance in the architecture, landscapes, portraits, and abstract matters of cities. other participating artists are tyler francisco, rhealyn dalere, and chin fang chen from the school of architecture at the university of hawaii-manoa.

definition of printing

detail of the text blocks 

new york city central park perspective

shanghai lujiazui perspective

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.