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Hey all, I made this. The archive started with my 2015 BA thesis on Amiga ASCII art when I was curious about the history of ASCII art but found very little on text art that came before it. The historical precursors are often attributed to typewriter art and shaped/visual poetry, but I think letterpress is overlooked. So, I got slightly obsessed and started a personal database of pictures built entirely from metal type, ornaments, and rule, some going back to the 1600s. After eight years, I've managed to find ~2500 images. My friend Adel Faure built the website so it's now browseable by anyone!I would like to note that most images are from public digital collections (Internet Archive, national libraries, etc.) and displayed without permission (for educational purposes). I've tried to source every image, but check the original source and its license before reusing anything. I'd be happy to take down or correct anything.It's also incomplete and surely has errors and misattributions. Corrections to anything are very welcome.If anyone has leads on works I haven't catalogued, I'd love to hear them! The practice and pictures are scattered across languages and keywords (type picture, typosignet, typotectur, Bildsatz, stigmatypie, stunt typography...), so things hide in odd corners of archives. If you've seen something like this, please point me at it.There's also a longer essay on how it began:
https://garden-of-flowers.heikkilotvonen.com/?essay
Show HN: Garden of Flowers – an archive of pictorial typography before ASCII art
A historical archive of text art, specifically pictorial typography from metal type, ornaments, and rule, predating ASCII art. It aims to fill a gap in the history of text art, highlighting overlooked precursors like letterpress.
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A historical archive of text art, specifically pictorial typography from metal type, ornaments, and rule, predating ASCII art. It aims to fill a gap in the history of text art, highlighting overlooked precursors like letterpress.
This is a niche academic and historical project, not a B2B SaaS product. It addresses a gap in art history documentation, specifically the precursors to digital text art forms. While valuable for cultural preservation and academic research, it holds no direct B2B SaaS market implications. It does not solve enterprise pain points, offer scalable business solutions, or align with current software development trends. Its utility is purely archival and educational, lacking commercial application or market opportunity within the B2B SaaS context.
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What is Garden of Flowers – an archive of pictorial typography before ASCII art?
Garden of Flowers – an archive of pictorial typography before ASCII art is analyzed by our AI as: A historical archive of text art, specifically pictorial typography from metal type, ornaments, and rule, predating ASCII art. It aims to fill a gap in the history of text art, highlighting overlooked precursors like letterpress.. It focuses on This is a niche academic and historical project, not a B2B SaaS product. It addresses a gap in art history documentation, specifically the precurso...
Where did Garden of Flowers – an archive of pictorial typography before ASCII art originate?
Data for Garden of Flowers – an archive of pictorial typography before ASCII art was aggregated directly from the Hacker News community ecosystem, representing raw developer and early-adopter sentiment.
When was Garden of Flowers – an archive of pictorial typography before ASCII art publicly launched?
The initial public indexing or launch date for Garden of Flowers – an archive of pictorial typography before ASCII art within our tracked developer communities was recorded on June 16, 2026.
How popular is Garden of Flowers – an archive of pictorial typography before ASCII art?
Garden of Flowers – an archive of pictorial typography before ASCII art has achieved measurable traction, logging over 116 traction score and facilitating 16 recorded discussions or engagements.
Which technical categories define Garden of Flowers – an archive of pictorial typography before ASCII art?
Based on metadata extraction, Garden of Flowers – an archive of pictorial typography before ASCII art is categorized under topics such as: pictorial typography, ASCII art, typewriter art, shaped/visual poetry.
How does the creator describe Garden of Flowers – an archive of pictorial typography before ASCII art?
The original author or development team describes the product as follows: "Hey all, I made this. The archive started with my 2015 BA thesis on Amiga ASCII art when I was curious about the history of ASCII art but found very little on text art that came before it. The hist..."
Community Voice & Feedback
Hey, this archive you've put together is extremely impressive. How did you find all of these? Literally keyword search on digital collections?
So EBCDIC art?
> https://garden-of-flowers.heikkilotvonen.com/?page=LKBGE51F3...Wow this is awesome, they had box-drawing characters in 1785!
Love this. The 18th century type specimens are gorgeous and it's amazing you pulled them from old digitized books. Do you have plans to add any interactive features like zoom on the images?
This is awesome! A few months ago I got a tattoo of one of the flowers from https://garden-of-flowers.heikkilotvonen.com/?page=LKBGE51F3...I’ve been variously told it looks like the sun, a hedgehog, and a lion & I’m kind fond of all those descriptions
Would love to suggest having a way to get the whole archive and metadata to browse locally or mirror, perhaps via a torrent?
Absolutely incredible, thank you for making this!
At school studying typing there was a class of 66 all manual typewriters except for the two electrics. If you were good and had some spare time, you were given printed instructions to type particular characters and returns. Sometimes shift into red ink. Do it properly and you got an image. So maybe pre ASCII art?
You should look at some Arabic calligraphy- there is a lot of artistic Arabic calligraphy where passages from the Quran, poetry, and other text are written beautifully as art.
Unique idea looks good
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