Art of 3D Typography: 26 Dream Houses of ‘Alphabet City’

Imagine the incredible challenge of setting up every letter in a printing press to make a manuscript or book – processes that can now be done digitally with extreme ease. Like these letterers of old, one artist has begun printing the alphabet again with diligence and personal attention to every detail – but instead of being 2D symbols, his lettering doubles as a series of unique and imaginative 3D dream homes.

Each ‘Alphabet City’ print by Scott Teplin is relief-printed on vellum and airbrushed with watercolors by hand. Like a traditional printing press, every letter has its own etched plate and must be manually printed each time. This makes for a consistent pattern but unique variations from one work of art to the next – much like no two books are quite the name, nor even real-life homes constructed from identical plans.

Via the publisher: “From the head and hand of master draftsman Scott Teplin comes a series of 26 dream-houses fashioned after our alphabet. Explore in each a bizarre, miniaturized constellation of bed rooms, drawing rooms, fantasy swimming pools, mysterious laboratories, personal ice cream parlors, gambling halls, nuclear reactors, and oozing phenomena of unknown consequence. Each crisp drawing pops from its page in a field of floating color.”

These are available individually as hand-finished custom prints or in book form. While retro in artistic style, modes of printing and overall approach, the houses depicted have elements that are distinctly contemporary as well. The result is a blend of vintage and modern aesthetics that has a curiously timeless feel.