The alphabet, weighed by use
each letter is drawn by its own frequency in English text
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
hover a letter for its share of English text
étude 01 · Graphics Interface 2025 · May 2025
TypeVis is a research tool built with Dr. Wesley Willett at the University of Calgary and published at Graphics Interface 2025. It maps dataset values onto the typography of running text, so weight, size, slant, spacing and color become encoding channels in their own right.
The piece above turns that idea on the alphabet itself. Switch the channel and the same 26 values get re-encoded in a different typographic voice.