Anthony Velen uses drones to build an alphabet from Swiss architecture

Multi-disciplinary designer Anthony Velen has a talent for seeing things from a new perspective. This is proven by a recent photographic project that saw the designer reimagine architectural structures as a series of typographic forms.

“I always loved aerial shots, especially when the camera is pointing down,” Anthony tells It’s Nice That. “This can lead to unusual discoveries, such as interesting shapes, lines and sometimes typography.” Describing his creative process as “similar to a treasure hunt,” Anthony’s project begins at home, lurking on Google maps to find “buildings or places that can reveal interesting typographic shapes,” he explains. From there, he travels to the discovered destination, launches the drone in his home country of Switzerland and waits for the letterform to appear.

“I’ve almost crashed my drone more than once,” Anthony explains of the process. “The take-off is relatively easy, but the landing can be quite difficult in the narrow Swiss streets.” However, it’s the streets that make Anthony’s work so pleasing to watch. He says he often “waits for a car or someone to pass through to add some kind of life to the composition,” consequently creating short clips of daily life impacted by giant typographic structures.

“My goal is to achieve a complete alphabet someday,” he says. “It takes time and dedication but I love the idea of doing graphic design with things that already exist, to see them from a different angle.”

Anthony uses typography in a more traditional way as well in his explorer capacity. Graduating from a graphic design degree back in 2014, he is currently a designer at Moser in Lausanne, working as a creative on everything from branding to motion design. He’s also a dab hand at utilising typography on moving posters, which you can see below.