Flesh Fonts

Ever encountered a font that made you wince? (Comic Sans doesn't count.) Try making it through all 26 of Thijs Verbeek's huidletters with your eyes wide open. The Dutch designer created the typeface by pinching human flesh into letterforms with wooden clothespins and then photographing them at close range. It's positively skintillating. If you're interested in something more permanent, pick up a copy of Ina Saltz's Body Type: Intimate Messages Etched in Flesh (Stewart, Tabori, & Chang), a compendium of typographic tattoos. "I do not have any tattoos," says Saltz, a designer and author who recently completed a sequel, Body Type 2. "But if I were to get a typographic tattoo, it would be one which would signal to fellow type-lovers that I am a member of the tribe: an obscure dingbat from a favorite typeface, for example."