Capturing The Beauty Of The Natural World Through Typography

Annushka Hardikar

One thing that social media has been good for is serving as a platform for the exploration and recognition of incredible art. It has provided an outlet for creative minds to experiment and try out new styles while also engaging with their audience/viewers, giving rise to an interactive community of people. Instagram challenges, in particular, have become exceptional showcases of innovation and talent, one that really piques our interest is 36 Days of Type. To put it simply, the challenge is for artists – or anyone really – to design new typography and letters for the 26 alphabets and 10 numbers, in creative ways of their choosing.

Some have used it as a medium to showcase their unique artistic sensibilities - from combining art and music and constellations to drawing out the A-Z of Mughal History - while some just had fun with their creativity. Artist Annushka Hardikar chose to utilise this platform to celebrate something that she has always been fascinated by – the natural world in all its forms and colours. She dedicated her project to medicinal plants and herbs, illustrating the entire alphabet using four herbal plants and/or flowers for each.

It is not just the beauty of nature that she wanted to showcase through this series but also everything that it has to offer. The many wonderful uses of the things Mother Earth gives us is something we often tend to forget or just aren’t aware of – something Hardikar herself learnt through her research for this project.

Each letter has been created with incredible, intricate detailing and is a real testament to the artist’s talent, only going to show the amount of time and love she has put into it.

While she may have only covered the 26 alphabets that are part of the challenge, she says that she will soon be working on the numbers as well.

We’re posting below some of our favourites from Hardikar’s series, you can view the entire series here. All images are courtesy of the artist and photographed by Vishwas Patwardhan.

If you’d like to buy prints or contact the artist you can email her at annushka3595@gmail.com