What started as a project to create a few letters for an album cover morphed into an entire alphabet derived from the collective contributions of this Swedish punk band.

Bassist Anton Bolin was working on the new record’s graphic design and “wanted to do something that suits the dirty hardcore punk we play. So I started to pee a logo and when it was done, I realized that it would be a refreshing typeface for the world to see.”

The half-year process involved urinating on bed sheets, photographing them and then turning them into vector formats using digital software. Rapid dehydration was a challenge — in each attempt, a letter had to be made in a matter of seconds if at all.

A lot of testing was involved in the selection and stretching of sheet material as well to achieve the desired effect. To save anyone interested in replicating the process some time and trouble, the band’s album also includes a quick-and-dirty DIY tutorial on making urine-based type.

“It was so limiting to have to adapt to your bladder,” said Bolin. “On a good day you had three maybe four attempts to create a letter.” The results, though, were worth the wait. The resulting typeface looks dynamic and organic, much like the streams of urine that went into its creation. Pissjar Sans (“a typeface made of piss”) is also available for free from the band’s website.

Bouncing waste liquid back at the impolite and intoxicated bar crawlers who treat the streets as their bathroom, the St. Pauli district of Hamburg, Germany, has given fair warning about its water-repellent surfaces with signs that read (translated): “Do not pee here – we pee back.”

The St. Pauli Pees Back project is a response to the shortcomings of other approaches – with 20,000,000 visitors per year, the area has not had much success with signs and fines and fines alone.

Naturally, the locals complain about the smell and sight of this happening on their city’s streets. People getting pissed is one thing, but pissing publicly is quite another.

A super-hydrophobic paint was applied to some of the most popular non-potties in the neighborhood, making sure “it reaches the target demographic” – many locations are marked but some are not, designed to deter people from peeing regardless of notices posted. As one of its organizers put it in German (sounding even better in English translation): “It’s peeback time.”