calligram

From French calligramme.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkæl.ɪˌɡɹæm/

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calligram (plural calligrams)

1. A word, phrase or longer text in which the typeface or the layout has some special significance.

   Synonyms: carmen figuratum, figure poem

   • 1993, Willard Bohn, Apollinaire, Visual Poetry, and Art Criticism, Bucknell University Press, →ISBN, page 99:

     The next calligram, which depicts a horse, presents several interesting problems. Among other things, the figure is juxtaposed with seven lines of poetry arranged in traditional fashion.

   • 2000, Daniel Albright, Untwisting the Serpent: Modernism in Music, Literature, and Other Arts, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 263:

     A calligram has ambitions beyond those of an ideogram: an ideogram is a picture of meaning, but a calligram intends to provide a picture of experience as it impinges on the whole sensorium. An ideogram is centripetal, convergent, a focusing […]

2. A signature made from interwoven Arabic words.

• logogram
• ideogram

• calligram on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Islamic calligraphy on Wikipedia.Wikipedia