Birdie is an alphabet created partly by accident from a single square grid using CorelDRAW’s Envelope tool. It started years ago as a simple experiment that produced a series of completely unexpected deformations

The grid was built from individual lines with adjustable stroke widths. Once the grid was complete, all the lines were grouped together before the Envelope tool was applied

The grid’s response to repositioning the envelope nodes was almost impossible to predict. Moving a node to create a particular curve could cause the grid lines to bend, stretch, or overlap in ways that differed completely from what I had intended

Once I had gained some control over the deformation, several shapes began to resemble letters. As more nodes were added and repositioned, recognizable forms gradually emerged until all 26 letters had taken shape. They did not follow a common typographic construction, but all came from the same grid and the same tool

The way the many lines bent and gathered into a single form reminded me of a murmuration. In one of the experiments, the result also happened to resemble a bird, which gave the alphabet its name: Birdie

Not every letterform turned out equally well, but layering all 26 together produced a dense graphic composition that just looks cool

Sometimes strange experiments lead to equally strange results. This one stretched over a few months. I returned to it in short bursts between other tasks, sometimes closing the file without finding anything at all. I nearly abandoned it more than once, but over time, searching for the right forms became a kind of meditation, and this is what eventually came out of it. I still miss CorelDRAW sometimes

Birdie is an alphabet created partly by accident from a single square grid using CorelDRAW’s Envelope tool. It started years ago as a simple experiment that produced a series of completely unexpected deformations

The grid was built from individual lines with adjustable stroke widths. Once the grid was complete, all the lines were grouped together before the Envelope tool was applied

The grid’s response to repositioning the envelope nodes was almost impossible to predict. Moving a node to create a particular curve could cause the grid lines to bend, stretch, or overlap in ways that differed completely from what I had intended

Once I had gained some control over the deformation, several shapes began to resemble letters. As more nodes were added and repositioned, recognizable forms gradually emerged until all 26 letters had taken shape. They did not follow a common typographic construction, but all came from the same grid and the same tool

The way the many lines bent and gathered into a single form reminded me of a murmuration. In one of the experiments, the result also happened to resemble a bird, which gave the alphabet its name: Birdie

Not every letterform turned out equally well, but layering all 26 together produced a dense graphic composition that just looks cool

Sometimes strange experiments lead to equally strange results. This one stretched over a few months. I returned to it in short bursts between other tasks, sometimes closing the file without finding anything at all. I nearly abandoned it more than once, but over time, searching for the right forms became a kind of meditation, and this is what eventually came out of it. I still miss CorelDRAW sometimes