Ben Johnston’s Murals with Typography Popping Off the Walls

Following our discussion in class about the history of typography, I came upon this article highlighting the murals painted by artist, Ben Johnston. Johnston specializes in murals which appear to have text coming out of the walls itself. He plays around with different 3-D effects that he can create for the way the text pops out of the wall. For instance, in some murals the text appears to be peeling off the wall while in others Johnston manages to create the illusion that it is flowing down the wall. These different effects are created by playing around with elements such as color, shadow and perspective. I feel that the significant variations he creates in his murals just by manipulating a few elements of the text relates back to our discussion about how something as small as a Serif can alter the appearance of the text completely.

Click here to view some of his work and watch a video in which he talks about his process of painting murals!