Some time ago while searching for a typeface to use for my wedding invitations, I ran across a wonderfully inspiring project on Veer called Type City. It’s just a great example of what a talented artist can do with interesting shapes. In this case, the shapes happened to be part of a well-designed typeface.

Greatly inspired by what veer did with that awesome fly-through (turn up your speakers, even the soundtrack is perfect), desktops, and letterpress prints, I started a project of my own bringing together two great loves of my creative life. Typography & Disney.

Here is a peek at the result:

I thought it would be fun to turn this piece into a desktop image for those who find this sort of thing interesting.

• 1920 x 1200
• 1680 x 1050
• 1600 x 1024
• 1440 x 900
• 1280 x 1024
• 1024 x 768
• 800 x 600
• and of course… iPhone

The castle is set entirely out of characters, ligatures and ornaments from the Affair typeface created by the totally amazing type designer, Alejandro Paul. Every single bit of type was individually placed (and in many cases placed and replaced several times). It took a lot of hours to hammer out how I was going to approximate some of the beautiful architectural detail of the castle. But it really was fun work. A wonderful diversion from my usual faire of markup and style sheets.

I’ve got an awesome letterpress shop ready and waiting to do some large prints for me. Letterpress was the plan from the outset… these desktops are really just a fun little project for tonight. In it’s final form the Sleeping Beauty Castle print will be approx 35″ x 24″ (I had to scour the country for a shop with a press this large). It’s really going to be a stunning piece… I’m very excited to finally get it to press.

This is the first in a series. I’ll be starting with the classic Disneyland attractions and just see where I end up.