NYC Parks Are Using a Designer’s ‘Tree Font’ to Plant Secret Messages with Real Trees
Inspired by the nature around her, artist Katie Holten recently developed the New York City Tree Alphabet. Each letter is represented by an illustration of a different type of tree found in NYC. The letter A, for example is depicted as an ash tree, and the letter O is illustrated as an oak.
Holten is one of the first creatives to become an NYC Parks artist-in-residence, where she was asked to explore “the intersection of art, urban ecology, sustainability, nature, and design.” Holten’s resulting NYC Trees font is now available as a free download to anyone who wants to write secret messages in tree code. Not only that, but the NYC Parks Department plans to actually plant some of the messages as real trees in parks and other public spaces.
“Being an artist-in-residence with Parks meant that I could create a ‘real’ tree alphabet. When I say real, I mean legitimate, sanctioned, approved by the city,” Holten explains. “Often, this is exactly what you don’t want with/for an artwork! But in this case, because I really feel the project is a public service—providing a tool that people can use to interact with public space in a whole new way—it needed to be truthful and practical. It had to be something we could actually plant and that the city supported.”
Holten is currently accepting message submissions via her website. From poems to love letters, you can test out how your words would look as trees using the “Write with Trees” function on her homepage. “Right now, we’re leaving it completely wide open, so we’ve no idea what messages we’ll be planting. I’m excited to see what people send us,” Holten writes. “People have been suggesting words like ‘Dream,’ ‘Hope,’ and ‘Peace.’ But we’re also receiving longer messages, love letters, poems, and short stories. We’re curious to see how we could translate a long text into a grove of planted trees. It’s an exciting challenge and we can make up the rules as we go along, so anything could happen.”
Do you have a message you’d like to translate into your own custom forest? Planting begins in April 2019 in New York City. Download the font for free and check out Holten’s website for more details on the project.
Artist Katie Holten developed the New York City Tree Alphabet—each letter is represented by an illustration of a different type of tree.
image credit: Katie Holten
What a cool idea.
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I love it
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I agree with Mark – What a cool idea. I wonder who planted the seed …
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Ha, yes…
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BRILLIANT!!!
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Isn’t it beautiful?
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Absolutely love it!
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i do too, colleen
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What a fantabulously creative project. The ‘language’ of trees.
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I love this project so much
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Reblogged this on Yesterday and today: Merril's historical musings and commented:
This is so cool– a tree alphabet. I’m sharing this from Beth’s site.
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I think it’s quite cool, Beth. Would I be able to learn this tree alphabet by sight? It would take some doing, that’s for sure.
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It would take a lot of practice but would be an interesting journey
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So creative! Who doesn’t love trees?
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I agree 🌲🌳🌴
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talk about branching out! hope this creativity takes root and grows:)
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And maybe something will bloom from it
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Cool!
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Go check it out this spring in nyc
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Need to!
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Reblogged this on 1WriteWay and commented:
This is so cool I have to share. For lovers of trees and words.
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Ty and I love both
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I love this!
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Me too!🌳
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😀
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Treerific! ⌒°(❛ᴗ❛)°⌒
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🌳
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Absolutely beautiful! Thank you for sharing!
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You are so welcome
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I tried to “like” but nothing happened. I love this.
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Not sure why – I’m sorry
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That is fabulous.
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Isn’t it?
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What a lovely idea — and what a brilliant way to connect NYC residents with the bits of nature that surround them!
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Yes, to all of that
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awesome!
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It is!
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What a lovely idea, once planted ,every one will try and read it…..My road says LLLLLLLL
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🌳
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Oh wow I love trees and I found this book about how to draw them wow I’m inspired.
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Fantastic
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Fascinating. When I was a kid, my best friend and I often exchanged messages in code. All kinds of codes. Sending messages with the tree font would be a great way to play with “coded” messages while learning to recognize all the different trees.
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Yes!
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lovelily brilliant !
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❤️🌳
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Wow … Now, this is very cool! Thanks so very much for this great share. I have bookmarked Katie Holden’s website and am off to explore it now …
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Ooops … “Katie Holten” …
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She is quite a talent
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Reblogged this on Deforestation.
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Ty, karen
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