What Are Your ABCs of Making?

Last week, a camper on Maker Camp shared a link to a wonderful new alphabet book, Maker’s Alphabet. It’s being written and illustrated by a talented pair of makers in New York, Melody Quintana and Sneha Pai. I had a chance to talk with them last week, and I was impressed by their vision for a happy romp with 26 familiar characters, which would be a welcome addition to the crib side of any maker family. It’s already exceeded its goal on Kickstarter, but if you want to get in on the action, you have a day left!

Melody and Sneha started making the book for an Entrepreneurial Design class at the School of Visual Arts (SVA). The professors want their students to understand what running a small business is like: using crowdfunding to pilot an idea and iterate on it. People often keep ideas precious and stew on them rather than realizing them in the world, and the class is pushing them to be more adventurous than that. The class encourages them to find their audience first.

The book emerged out of their shared love for Arduino, which they have used a lot for projects at SVA. They started with “A is for Arduino” and ran with it. They think of the book as a celebration of all the different ways you can make. Melody said, “Everyone is a maker!”

What I’ve seen of their book is delightful. It also got me to wondering, what would my maker alphabet be? The maker movement encompasses so many different tools, materials, processes, and passions that I’m sure no two makers would have the same alphabet. The possibilities are endless. And what would your alphabet be?

I put all of the letters below so you can copy and paste them into your reply.

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z