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3-Dimensional Hiragana | what if…

by Johnny - May 17th, 2010

Hideo Kanbara of Barakan Design has embarked on an interesting thought experiment. What if hiragana were 3-dimensional? His website provides an example using the first character of the table, あ (a).

Front view | click images to enlarge

Top view

Side view (screenshot of an animated rotation)

View Comments

1 Cow { 05.18.10 at 12:03 pm }: That’s truly creative. I wonder what it’d be like if each stroke were a different piece.
2 Kokuyo Milikeshi Eraser | Spoon & Tamago { 05.18.10 at 1:41 pm }: [...] Speaking of Hideo Kanbara, his Kadokeshi eraser (above) – a Kokuyo Design Award nominee of 2002 and a subsequent hit product in stationary stores across Japan (not to mention an induction into MoMA’s permanent collection) – has recently been incarnated into Milikeshi, Kokuyo’s latest innovative eraser. Milikeshi, which derives its name from millimeter and keshi (erase) went on sale May 13th. [...]
3 spoon_tamago { 05.18.10 at 7:11 pm }: yea – imagine having to memorize them all in 3D
4 tudza { 05.21.10 at 2:13 am }: How about if each stroke were a different piece and a different size? Looks all right until you realize that one stroke is absolutely huge and nearly below the horizon.
5 spoon_tamago { 05.21.10 at 2:02 pm }: good point tudza
6 SNOW Magazine » 3D Hiragana { 05.26.10 at 9:52 pm }: [...] & Tamaga posts a few more examples of what these characters can look like when displayed in a three dimensional [...]