Letters have particular sounds, so why not colors and tastes? Artists have delighted in the phenomenon called synesthesia where information seems to stimulate unrelated senses. Vladimir Nabokov experienced letters as colors, and Sonia Delaunay insists that we remember what C tastes like. The artists in medieval manuscripts painted elaborate letters to highlight important text, illuminating them with gold and color to make them ‘pop’. Květa Pacovská insists that her brightly colored letters don’t just pop, but pop up, and Lisa McGarry returns them to childhood’s alphabet blocks as a reminder: BE AMAZED.
Jean Holabird & Vladimir Nabokov, AlphaBet in Color (2005)

Sonia Delaunay, Alphabet (1972)

Květa Pacovská, A l’infini (2007)

Lisa McGarry, Be Amazed (and other words to live by) (2013)

