Dion Star’s Marine Debris Typeface is made from sea debris that has washed up on the shore in England.
One day while walking along the beach in England, Dion Star stumbled across a little green clothespin. Being a graphic designer, Star immediate realized that this pin was more than just a bit of litter that washed up on shore. To him, it was a letter A. As he continued his strolls, Star started seeing letters and numbers everywhere—a bit of frazzled string that looked like an S, a hunk of metal that resembled a W, a plastic tab shaped like an 8.
“I’ve always been interested in the color and form of marine litter, so I decided to collect a few pieces from the beach with a view to creating something,” he says.
That creation was Marine Debris Typeface, a full set of letters made up of the 2041 pieces of junk Star went onto collect. From the start, the designer set a few guidelines: no bottles, cans, plastic bags or candy wrappers. He only wanted pieces that had washed up on shore. He also committed to keeping everything as-is. “The rules were to find the letterforms as they were, with no manipulation of any kind,” he says. “With some letters it would have been easy to bend or twist something to fit—but that would have been cheating my own rules. I enjoyed the idea that this was just a search and I didn’t have to do any thinking, just walk and observe.”
