After Z

What is the twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet? What does it signify? The Art Directors Club challenged past winners of its Young Guns competition to answer these questions in the pages of a Moleskine notebook. The creative contest, known as The Undiscovered Letter, was developed to raise awareness of lettera27, a foundation that supports literacy and educational initiatives. The jury winnowed the entries to 27 finalists: inspired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Edgardo Moreno played with out-of-context accent marks while Ivan Pols let nature take its course, sketching melted W’s and wind-ravaged, overgrown A’s. Vincent LaCava chose to personify the twenty-seventh letter, combining U and M to create “the hideous ‘UM’ letter,” the snarling baddie in an alphabet-themed video game of his own creation. “The word ‘um’ is used in the real world when no other word comes to mind,” noted LaCava. “In our game, UM is the illiterate villain, poised against knowledge, education, and progress.”