I have always enjoyed looking at aerial photography. It is fascinating how the world we live in can seem so different when viewed from above. A building, for instance, is experienced internally as a series of rooms and hallways- – but look at the same structure on Google Maps and it takes on a whole new form.

Rhett Dashwood took this concept to a whole new level when he decided to use Google Maps to explore the Australian state of Victoria. The 32-year-old graphic designer set out on a mission to create an “alphabet” composed entirely of aerial photographs of natural and man-made features that bare resemblance to the Roman alphabet. His only rules: no manipulating the images in any way–meaning no “photo-shopping,” and no rotating.

In describing the process used to identify the images, Mr. Dashwood
said, “I found them exactly as you think I might have, slowly moving
from page to page over the maps and visually scanning.”

The project took six months to complete, but the results are pretty cool. Check out images of the complete alphabet here.

If you were to attempt something like this in your home state or
country, where would you start? Obviously, the bends of rivers would be
a good place to look for curvy letters like S, and buildings are often
shaped like straight letters such as L or F… but what about more
intricately shaped letters such as W or Q?

Beyond the parallels to the Roman alphabet, there are countless other
ways to interpret the shapes formed by our landscape. In this sense,
one could compare scanning Google Maps to finding shapes in the clouds.
In fact, we here at My Wonderful World would love for you to send us a
cool photo from Google Maps that looks like something else… perhaps a
patch of forest shaped like a car?

Cameron for My Wonderful World

Source: Telegraph UK