Textscapes: Words That Come Right Off the Page, Literally

Hongtao Zhou, a Chinese artist and designer who lives in Hawaii, creates 3D documents that marry technology with text. Printing technology was first created in ancient China to reproduce text using woodblocks, however today’s definition has gone from 2D swiftly to 3D printing. Zhou’s Textscapes use 3D printed letters to create actual cityscapes, taking words and letters and giving them life off of the page, as lively as the cities they represent.

This series is also being contributed to by Tyler Francisco, Rhealyn Dalere and Chin Fang Chen from the School of Architecture at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. The project includes pieces in braille, different language characters, calligraphies and number systems to bridge the text and its visuality in architecture, landscape, portraits and abstract matters.

Humorous Visual Demonstration-3D printed document on regular printer