Obstacle

Experimental display typeface

Broken white plaster letters scattered over pale yellow-green wax on a granite curb — The actual forms that made the typeface

The process

I cast an uppercase set in plaster from wax molds. The letters broke in casting, and I scanned the pieces as they came out. Every chip, crack, and missing corner in the final alphabet came from an actual break.

Plaster letters A to E on cardboard, chipped and cracked, with the C broken into three pieces — Cast and broken

Illustrator file with scanned plaster letters traced in black, beside a photo of plaster letters A to E on cardboard

Illustrator file with the traced Obstacle alphabet A to Z in black on a gray texture, with the outlines below

Legibility

The set stays legible because the damage is uneven. Some letters come through nearly intact, others lose a corner or split through the counter. No two fail the same way, which is how erosion actually works — the same conditions produce different results across a single inscription.

Obstacle alphabet as thin white outlines on a near-black field: each cracked letter sits inside a rough, torn halo — Specimen · Light on dark

Obstacle specimen on concrete: the full alphabet and numerals as cracked outlines, with OBSTACLE LINES in white below — Specimen