An Artful Ransom Note Generator

Let’s say your roommate still hasn’t returned that copy of Big Trouble in Little Chinayou lent him more than two weeks ago. Logically, you’ll need some sort of passive-aggressive and semi-anonymous way to relay your negative feelings about the situation. You kidnap his pad thai as collateral and want to leave a ransom note. But what if you don’t feel like cutting up your magazines — what do you do?

Typo, atypeface generator developed by the National Library of Poland, has you covered. You enter whatever text you want, and Typo presents your message using randomly selected letters from the library’s collection of historical, scientific, and literary documents spanning the past six centuries. It also lets youdownload, send, or share your results. It’s like running wild through a rare-books library wielding a pair of giant scissors, without all the trouble and expense.

For the historically curious, clicking on a single letter or number will bring up the original source document from which it was pulled. Unfortunately, this part is in Polish —przepraszam!— however,Google Chrome users can just right-click and press ‘Translate to English.’

Check out our results:

‘S’

Rome: the costs of Hermann Scheer: (ex typographia Vitalis Mascardi), 1646.

(Ferrari, Giovanni Battista (1584-1655).)

‘T’

The Illustrated Frolic: monthly magazine / ed. Stanislaw Wegrzyn

(Chicago : Illustrated Frolic Publishing Company, 1918.)

‘U’

Gradual de tempore.

([Poland], 1439.)

‘D’

Wiedza tajemnicza : jednodniwka.

([S.l.] : S. Sawkis, [1935])

‘I’

Vistula / [Polska egluga Rzeczna “Vistula”]

([Warszawa : s.n.], 1936)

‘O’

Bornholm : dunska wyspa skalista.

(Rnne : Bornholms Turistforening, [193-])

‘3’

Chant polonais : Zyczenie [!] = Mdchen’s Wunsch = Souhait d’une jeune fille : op. 74 no. 1 / compos par Fr. Chopin ; simplifi par E. D. Wagner.

(Berlin : A. M. Schlesinger, [1861-1862].)

‘6’

4 mapy terenu wojny – dokadne – wydanie kieszonkowe.

(Krakw : A. Jastrzbski, 1914)

‘0’

Luftkurort Hain i. Rsgb.

([S.l.] : Ortsgruppe Hain des Riefengebirgs=Vereins, [191-])