Most cities have so much in common that a generic “map of every city” can seem similarly familiar to people living in London, Paris, New York or another metropolis entirely. General types of neighborhoods aren’t the only things different cities share, though — much less obvious but pervasive are sets of codes, symbols and markings that can communicate meaning across different times and urban spaces.

Even though (or perhaps because) people drive over and walk by them every day, it is easy to overlook the rich, colorful and cryptic utility markings spray-painted onto streets and sidewalks. Like graffiti tags or hobo codes, this language of scribbled text, dots, lines and arrows may seem indecipherable at first, but lives depend on engineers, city workers and utility companies understanding what they mean.

Utility markings tell excavators working on subsurface projects where to dig and (more importantly) where not to dig. A vocabulary of symbols (with its associated grammar of colors) helps diggers steer clear of dangerous power, sewer and water lines as well as other pipes and cables.

Like any language, utility codes have evolved what one could call regional “accents” of a sort — linguistic conventions that vary from one state or country to the next. Standardization, though, is important in helping keep people safe, which is why there are often local or national rules governing what different colors and symbols represent.

Long before cities came around to the idea of utility markings, train-hopping nomads were working out similarly symbol-based systems of communication. As these travelers roamed America looking for work, particularly during the Great Depression, they learned to leave messages for one another — so-called “hobo codes.” These relatively simple symbols could help fellow travelers find good places to camp and kind people who might give them meals, for instance.

At the time, being nomadic was a mixed bag — some travelers were known as bums or tramps, disparaged for drinking or idling rather than working. The term hobo, though, was more specifically applied to those actively seeking work and willing to take on jobs others didn’t want to do — hobos were met with various degrees of caution and generosity. Many were illiterate, however, so coded symbols with intuitive meanings helped them convey messages through etched or chalked markings. The relatively discreet size and abstract shapes made these marks easy for people not in the know to overlook.

Some symbols represented fairly specific suggestions about how to behave and what to avoid. A cross, for instance, could indicate that talking about religion might help a person get free food from a particular resident. Other markings might caution hobos about heightened crackdowns on vagrants and beggars by local police. While train-jumping culture has changed, some modern travelers have attempted to digitize the idea of hobo symbols through QR codes.

Mural and graffiti art sit somewhere between officially sanctioned and illicit urban communication, depending on the location and surface being tagged. These interventions, too, have evolved a lot over the years. Definitions and genres have sprung up along the way, helpful for tracking and analyzing but also understanding different works — there are pieces, tags, stickers (or: slaps), throw-ups, stencils, heavens, blockbusters, wildstyles and more.

A piece, for instance (short for “masterpiece”) and is usually a complex and multicolored affair difficult to do illegally given the time they take to make. A blockbuster can go either way, often made using rollers and designed to cover up a surface — sometimes one that has already been tagged. A heaven, however, is generally illegal, defined by the difficulty of putting a work up high on something like the back (or front) of a highway sign or the surface of a billboard advertisement — not generally places where one can get official approval to paint.

Some typologies are pretty self-explanatory, like bubble letters or fat caps, the latter of which are usually done with wide spray tips, making them both easy to deploy and easy to read (in turn rendering them useful for get-in-and-out-quickly situations). Shadow letters can also take a bit more work, but help a tag pop off a surface, giving it a somewhat more weighty and three-dimensional appearance. Indirectly, the forms and shapes of letters and symbols tell the observer something about the artist’s intent and constraints. Graffiti can even be broken down into characters, alphabets and fonts, which an informed onlooker can use to better understand a given work.

Some artists and art fans have gone to great lengths to classify different types of graffiti, but such a task is destined to be forever incomplete — graffiti is personal and location-specific, not based on any shared font or type. But some, like artist Evan Roth, try anyway to collect, identify and compare examples of letters, creating order out of the seeming chaos of conflicting tags. He also took his project full circle by pasting up alphabets along the city blocks in which they were originally found, encouraging people to look at tags in a new light, offering temporary glimpses into the linguistic ties that bind them loosely together. With any street communication, legal or illegal, there will always be some give and take between fluid creativity and efforts to categorize, standardize and simply understand.

Nothing gets lost in translation with these embedded English pronunciations, tied directly into the Japanese typographic style Katakana. While the letterforms of Katakana create an effectively phonetic alphabet, its characters are still difficult for some foreigners to read, at least until now.

Like many design solutions, this one looks easy in retrospect: simply tuck an English-legible phonetic articulation guide using a capped alphabet inside the Japanese characters. The result: Phonetikana, a potentially very powerful tool for communication, teaching and learning, or even signage in places like international airports or multinational conventions.

From the creators: “Multiple trips to Japan and constant frustration at being unable to read the language has sparked off an unusual typographic project at johnson banks. Earlier in the year we started seeing if we could combine the English language and Japanese script in some way.”

The firm went a step further as well, embedding words and phrases inside symbols to create a children-legible introductory guide to Japanese, reinforcing connections between each sound and symbol set. Meanwhile, the hybrid typography remains a work in progress, but definitely on the right linguistic track.

Every generation has had its own unique brand of art and its own ways of teaching children. These incredible occupational alphabets from the mid-19th century are an amusing intersection of the two. Printed specifically for the purpose of helping children remember the alphabet, these pamphlets are full of lovely art and the type of cultural references that are simply priceless to anyone who enjoys unusual glimpses into American history.

A Was an Archer, or a New Amusing Alphabet for Children, 1843

The idea behind these occupational alphabets was to give children familiar words by which to remember the letters of the alphabet. They are, perhaps, not as effective as the teaching aids we employ today – but they certainly make for some interesting reading.

(images via: Ptak Science Books)

Most modern parents would not think of teaching their children with examples like “R was a robber, and hung as you can see” or “D was a drunkard, and had a red face.” By the standards of the late 19th century, however, these amusing little couplets were perfectly appropriate for children.

Occupational Alphabet, 1850

The second set of occupational alphabet drawings are in color and feature even more intricate woodcut art. Most of the letters include several examples of occupations, giving an unusual glimpse into what life must have been like 150 years ago.

Because these words had to be familiar enough for the children reading the pamphlets to recognize immediately, the occupations featured in the pamphlets had to be well-known household words. How many children today would know what a wharfinger, fishmonger or cooper is?

As pointed out at the source of these images, the occupations mentioned in these educational aids highlight just how much the world has changed in this relatively brief amount of time. Several of these jobs simply do not exist any longer.

According to Ptak Science Books, only seven of the 59 professions mentioned here are completely defunct today, with the remainder still functioning in some way – not a bad percentage for professions which were commonplace more than 150 years ago.

The art itself is exceptionally interesting, giving a look into the fashion and work environments of the 19th century. For woodcuts which have been enlarged from their original 5″ height, the detail is stunning.

Much like the educational primers that would follow generations later, these little alphabet learning aids used rhymes and a bit of humor to keep children interested and help them remember the important facts.

It would be interesting to know whether teaching aids like this actually helped children to remember the alphabet or whether they spent most of their time looking at the pictures (like we have).

(images via: Ptak Science Books)

Particularly note-worthy is the “Y” in this alphabet, with a young man learning the trade of yeoman to earn his own keep – something which would never be suggested today.

The art of typography goes far beyond Arial and Helvetica. There is a certain elegance in the way that typographers can take a standard set of letters and turn them into unique and lovely works of art with little more than a few flourishes. These fonts are shining examples of what can be done with the alphabet we all know and love when some creativity and ingenuity are applied.

Vladimir Koncar’s Wonderful World of Letters

Vladimir Koncar, a Croatian artist, seems fascinated with turning everyday objects into letters. He’s taken everything from pills to cigarette butts to even dirt and hair and turned them into some of the most unique fonts ever. Paper clips, cacti, beer bottle caps – he collects items and uses them to create detailed alphabets, which he then uses to spell out his thoughts at the time.

For Koncar, this unusual exercise in typography is an escape from tedious commercial assignments. As any artist or designer knows, creating solely for others is the quickest way to kill the joy in one’s art – so a release like this one is entirely necessary. Luckily for us, Koncar’s personal project is fantastically entertaining.

The little phrases written out as examples for each font provide Koncar a link between the letters and the materials used to create them. It’s the same for many of us: we choose a specific font to get across a certain message when it’s called for. These wonderful and strange typography sets allow an unprecedented degree of visual connection between the message and the medium.

Google Maps Typography

(images via: Dornob)

The world is full of fascinating things, and Rhett Dashwood proved that when he found the entire alphabet in various locations with Google Maps. To make the challenge more interesting, the search was limited to just Victoria, Australia – which Rhett searched mile by mile for months on Google Maps. If you’d like to see each location for yourself, Rhett’s website includes all of the locations so that you can see the letters in context on their respective maps.

Alphabet City

Those of us who are in love with letters, words and typography can relate to projecting a kind of personality on each letter of the alphabet. Scott Teplin puts an interesting spin on that practice with his Alphabet City prints: each letter of the alphabet is turned into a 3D home, complete with furnishings and appliances.

(images via: x-ing books)

The idea is definitely unique and borders on bizarre, but somehow it works wonderfully. Each letter is like its own little dollhouse, and peering into every picture is like sharing a moment of life with the occupants. The retro-but-modern prints are all available individually from the artist or all together as a book.

Andrew Byrom’s Adventures in Typography

Andrew Byrom creates a fascinating variety of fonts – from those that could conceivably be used on a computer to those that have to be experienced in real life, physical form. “Grab Me,” above, is a character set made of metal grab bars installed on a wall. Some of Byrom’s other creations include letters made from box kites and Venetian blinds.

(images via: Andrew Byrom)

Byrom is a master of bridging the design gap between 3D rendered images and 3D physical objects in his typography designs. This set, called “Interiors,” is actually constructed of welded tubular steel, just like furniture.

Ideographic Alphabet

(images via: Amandine Alessandra)

Graphic designer Amandine Alessandra makes a powerful statement about how we perceive objects with her ideographic (symbol-based) alphabet. The characters are all formed from a chair which is selectively covered and uncovered in certain spots to create each one. According to the designer, the font is only to be used to discuss the specific chair from which the letters are formed.

The Amazing Alphabet Object

(images via: Dornob)

An alphabet that’s rendered in both glowing physical form and in abstracted print form is already pretty amazing. But this set of characters is even more so due to the fact that every character is created by one simple shape: the squiggly black one above. By turning the shape this way and that, every letter in the alphabet can be produced from the viewer’s point of view.

(images via: Hijack Your Life)

Human bodies used to form letters are really nothing new, but the Backbreaker font from Hijack Your Life is exceptional. The entire alphabet was photographed during a single photoshoot, and each letter uses no more than two people (and maybe some windblown bits of cloth). It’s a truly beautiful set of letters made even more compelling by the lovely Netherlands beach on which it was photographed.