Writing One’s Name

Words by Marion Bataille

English version | Lire la version française

Issue N.29
Oct. 2025
Author: Marion Bataille
Typeface: AOZ
Printed in the margins of:
Cultura, Ghent [BE]
± 400 copies

Abstract

In this issue, Marion Bataille publishes a score of gestures for combining the geometric shapes that make up AOZ, her unicameral alphabet around which workshops are organised to introduce typography through manipulation (rather than drawing).

AOZ is a unicameral alphabet of capital letters. The letters are hidden and appear when you manipulate them, accompanied by a rhyme. The letters appear in the order of the shapes used to build them.

It has been designed for children from the age at which they can distinguish geometric shapes. The AOZ presentation is followed by a typography workshop, using cut-and-paste materials. Writing one’s name is the aim.

Building (as opposed to drawing) is the basis of the workshops.
Hypothesis: the construction of a letter by handling its constituent elements leaves a mark on the body's memory that is as strong as the hand writing.

The aim of these workshops (designed with the help of a fund to combat illiteracy) is to memorise letter shapes in the long term. They were designed during a residency at Les Trois Ourses school.

The AOZ articulated alphabet was co-published in 2016 by Petra Editiones in Mexico and Les Trois Ourses in France, with support from the CNAP. It is now out of print.

Since 2014, we have been able to offer workshops in nursery schools and graphic design schools, as well as to children and adults living in France who have not yet acquired French or the Roman alphabet.

In 2019, No one can fail was published by Éditions Non Standard, which presents the workshops held around AOZ and three other modular games: Claves, Jacques and Bâtisse. They are accompanied by reference texts on learning to write and the history of modular typography.

About Marion Bataille

Author of children books, animation films, graphic designer, illustrator, paper engineer.

Links:
marionbataille.comInstagram

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