04Jelly type

A word, moulded in gummy.

Type, and each letter is cast in jelly and dropped on a studio sweep. It lands, trembles, settles. Pull it and it stretches; let go and it swings back. The mould is the letter’s own outline: every edge it drew comes out rounded, the way a mould leaves it.

Then the scalpel — the paste-up knife, the one designers used to cut Letraset and rubylith. Draw a line across a letter and the blade follows it, point down, handle leading. The jelly parts behind the edge and keeps a flat, bright face where it was cut. Only what the stroke crossed is cut: slit an O on one side and it stays in one piece. Cut the leg off an R and you are left holding a P.

Gestures: Type — drop a letter · Drag — pull it (hand) · Draw across — cut (scalpel) · Drag the background, or two fingers — orbit · Scroll or pinch — zoom; scroll while holding — twist · Double-click — reset the view
Keys: Backspace — remove the last letter · Enter — a nudge · Esc — reset the word · Tab — switch tool
Typefaces: Fraunces Black, SOFT 100 (Undercase Type) · Mona Sans Black Wide (GitHub) · Bagel Fat One (JAMO Typeface) — all SIL OFL
Technique: Each letter is read from the font file, turned into polygons, meshed in tetrahedra and simulated as a stable Neo-Hookean soft body (XPBD, ten small steps per frame, nearly incompressible). Cuts are Boolean operations on the letter’s outline; the new pieces inherit the motion of the old one. WebGL 2: refraction with per-pixel thickness, Beer–Lambert absorption, shadows coloured by the light that crosses the jelly. All code, no images.
Status: In progress — 2026