Austrian graphic designer Andreas Scheiger creates fascinating speculative typography, investigating letters with the passion and freedom of an early explorer. His work is surreal and yet steeped in craftmanship, rendered with the same care Victorian scientists once lavished on their instruments and instrument boxes.

His ongoing project “Evolution of Type” is inspired by The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering, a book by the pioneering and vastly prolific American type designer Frederic W. Goudy. Goudy laid great stress on the revolutionary impact of the alphabetic system of writing. He believed that letters were themselves a record of man’s history and development, and that each possessed an essential and organic form. Inspired by these ideas, Andreas Scheiger has created typographic sculptures: letters preserved in amber like prehistoric insects, suspended in specimen tanks like budding embryos, or with their casings incised and retracted.

Scheiger’s informative blog provides details of the makings of, while his art prints, which include drawings from the Evolution series may be purchased here.