Lightbook is a wide project that I have started during my studies at university. The basic idea was to create an impalpable font that would be created by rays of light so it would be just kind of illusion. The other condition I had at the beginning was to create a strictly geometrical letters that could be built from few basic geometrical shapes.

To achieve this I have used the pricipal of theatre lights–when rays of two different light sources meet at the stage floor the light intesity of this intersection equals intensity of the source 1 plus the source 2. That allows to create two shades within one shape.

 

Every single letter in this alphabet consist of at least two geometrical shapes, most of the letters consist of three of these shapes (circle, sguare, rectangle etc.). These shapes are apart each other and printing them out would have no reason and almost zero legibility. But as soon as you execute a stencil where these shapes represent holes through non-transparent material and place a small light source behind every hole, in certain and very exact distance from the stencil you will get a picture of final letters. I named this font Lightbook Mono Block.

 

After few experiments I designed an universal mesh of light sources (660 pcs LED) and placed it into a very simple white cuboid made of semi-translucent plastic. On the top side there is a narrow hole which allows you to insert a stencil. After you switch it on a short (max. 120 characters) message coded in stencil appears on the front side of the box. Changing stencil changes a message you would like to look at (can be anything from your favourite quotation to "to do" list). Works great as a moody interior lighting as well.

 

Stencils are made of transparent polycarbonate covered with black sticker in which the desired letters are cut out. Dimensions of the object are 40 x 25 x 80 cm. Dimensions of the stencils are 35 x 51 cm.