Acrostics
The designs below are versions of an acrostic word puzzle. They are related somewhat to crossword puzzles, that uses an acrostic form. It is sort of a hybrid between a cryptogram and a crossword puzzle. An acrostic is a poem (or other form of writing) in which the first letter (or syllable, or word) of each line spells out a word, message or the alphabet. The word comes from the French acrostiche from post-classical Latin acrostichis, from Koine, Greek ἀκροστιχίς, from Ancient Greek ἄκρος “highest, topmost” and στίχος “verse”. As a form of constrained writing, an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aid memory retrieval.
The additional aspect of these designs is a typographic question. How much visual information is necessary to recognize and comprehend a letter form and therefore be readable?
