title
Kiko
Artist/Designer
Zeke Oyinloye
Date
2023
type of writing system
Acrophonic alphabet
Based on
Yoruba language
References
African Calligraphy
Kiko is a writing system that emerged from acrophonic experimentation, where each letter of the Yoruba alphabet (Nigerian) is represented by a symbol that corresponds to a word starting with the same sound. The system was created by initially designing pictorial representations for each letter in the alphabet. Each symbol was then replicated a total of 150 times with each successive iteration mirroring the preceding one. This approach allowed for natural errors and whims to influence the sequential evolution of each symbol. As a result, the symbols evolved from their original complex forms into novel, simplified representations. Kiko was inspired by diverse cultural writing traditions, taking cues from artists like Victor Ekpuk, whose work fuses traditional African calligraphy with contemporary art. The overarching vision for Kiko is to serve as a writing system that is rooted in the Yoruba culture, one that honors its authenticity and is geared towards its preservation.
abjad
abugida
acrophony
acrostic
alphabet
alphasyllabary
asemic writing
automatic writing
boustrophedon
character
character set
cipher
code
conscript
cryptography
encode
experimental
grapheme
glyph
hieroglyph
hieroglyphics
imaginarium
language
letter
letterform
linguistic
logosyllabary
logographic
logogram
nat scirpt
neography
optophonetic
phoneme
phonetic
pictograph
quasi
re-worlding
script
syllabary
syllable
symbol
speculative
torus
versimilitude
writing system
