Bent over a copy of The Guardian with an X-acto knife, London-based artist Kim Rugg carefully cuts out individual letters from the front page and places them on a cutting mat beside her. Then – in a process that can take up to five months – Rugg reconstructs the page the way she thinks it should be: still in its original layout, but alphabetized. She even rearranges the pixels of the images in gradients. The resulting work no longer carries any meaning in the text, but focuses our attention sharply on the graphic design: the fonts used, the margins between paragraphs, the size of the headlines.

Rugg works relentlessly at her task, spending seven days a week cutting and pasting. The preciseness of the work and her dogged devotion inevitably conjure questions about obsessive compulsive disorder. But to Rugg – and fans of her art – the association is as meaningless as jumbled letters on a page. “Some people like taking their time,” shrugs the artist in a Cool Hunting video that takes us into her studio.

Kim Rugg from Cool Hunting on Vimeo.

In the video, Rugg gives us a peek at her process and “In my opinion, the only paper that still looks really nice,” she adds. “I will recreate this page, but only using the A’s. Each A will be placed in its place on the page. So the final piece will be just a white piece of paper with a scattering of A’s. And then the same thing on another piece of paper with all the B’s, all the C’s.” Rugg shows us the remaining front page of the New York Times, dotted with little voids where the chosen letters were removed.

Newspapers aren’t the only media to get rearranged in what Rugg considers to be a more beautiful visual configuration. She also likes working with stamps, which she either stretches out to a more pleasing (to her eye) visual format or turns into a collage of pixels, laid out in patterns like waves. Cereal boxes and comic books, too, get recreated through a curious series of steps: taking a photo of the object, and recreating the photo with real copies of the object. “It’s an image made out of the object that’s an object made out of the image.”

Nick Georgiou is a Queens-born artist known for his use of the printed word as an artistic medium, but not in the way you think. He creates creatures and art pieces out of discarded newspaper and books, and has a penchant for depositing them in random locations throughout New York City. He creates anything from delightfully odd critters, to eerily depictive portraits. Here are some of his most interesting works:

(Images via dailyartfixx, wired, dailyartfixx)

Dogs slinking down alleyways and rooting through trash aren’t that uncommon in a big city, but slinking dogs that are trash, is a little different. Enter Nick Georgiou, an artist who utilizes newspaper and book remnants to create odd creatures and sculptures to add a little wonder and thought to one’s daily stroll through the streets.

(Images via conectaarte, romanywg, artnet, dailyartfixx)

When I imagine artwork made out of newspaper and books, I immediately assume it will take the form of some sort of collage utilizing interesting words or phrases together… I never expected to see portraits of people and animals appearing to be spawned straight out of a discarded pile of books, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised.

(Images via popfi, wpadc, myhumancomputer, leavesgrass)

Nick Georgiou’s tendency to place his art in random positions in the city make stumbling upon them that more exciting. Where one is used to seeing garbage piled on the side of the street, it’s an odd experience to see that garbage staring back at you with wild eyes.

(Images via romanywg, daylife)

Georgiou’s artwork can be found on street corners and next to lamp posts, but they’re also available in exhibitions, and peering through the glass windows of Georgiou’s hometown.

(Images via recogedor, chapmanlinks, myhumancomputer, conectaarte)

Seeing these newspaper creations outside feels right, since city slickers are so used to seeing the occasional tumbleweed of a newspaper rolling down the street. It’s interesting, then, to see Georgiou’s work fully framed and placed on a wall as if they were any normal painting or photograph. One doesn’t expect to see torn out books adorning an office or bedroom.