Words into Shapes

Words into Shapes: The Graphic Art of Calligram, by Daniele Tozzi, profiles fourteen contemporary illustrators (including Tozzi himself) who create calligrams. The book begins with a brief historical introduction, which includes the famous mouse's tail from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and several examples from Guillaume Apollinaire's book Calligrammes.

Words into Shapes was written in Italian, and translated into English and Spanish. Translation is sometimes an inexact art, as Umberto Eco noted in his book Mouse or Rat?, and Words into Shapes illustrates Eco's point precisely by mistranslating Carroll's "Mouse's tail" as "rat's tail".