How to make volumetric letters with your own hands. “Y” is not “and” is short! On the importance of Unicode normalization

Volumetric letters have long been popular in home decor, at photo shoots, they are given as gifts and used as wedding decorations. If you decide to make them yourself, in this master class, I will show you one way to make three-dimensional letters from cardboard with your own hands.

Do-it-yourself volumetric letters - materials and tools

For such letters, not very thick corrugated cardboard works well. This cardboard is usually used for making various boxes and packaging. It holds its shape well and is quite easy to cut. You also shouldn't throw out paper towel tubes (or toilet paper), although you can replace them (with wine stoppers, for example).

So, to make three-dimensional letters from cardboard, we will need:

Cardboard
Scissors
PVA glue
White paper
Pencil
Paper towel tubes
Ruler
Paints
Brush.

Volumetric letters made of cardboard - progress of work

I decided to make the first English letters of my name and my husband's name out of cardboard. And of course, nowhere without an ampersand. Let's get started.

1. Draw or print the desired letter size somewhere on A4 and cut it out.

2. Trace the letter and cut it out of cardboard in 2 copies.

3. Cut out a strip of paper about 2 cm wide. In general, the width depends on how voluminous your letter will be. If you are making really huge letters, you can use plastic or paper disposable cups.

4. Take a tube of paper towels, apply a strip to its edge and trace it with a pencil to make a ring 2 cm wide. Depending on the size of the letter, we will need about 6 such rings.

5. Cut out the rings with scissors or a paper knife.

6. Distribute the rings according to one of their letters. They will give us the volume we need and hold the cardboard halves together.

7. Warm up the hot melt glue. We coat one side of each ring and glue it to the letter.

8. Now we coat the upper sides of the rings and cover them with the second half of the letter. This must be done quickly and carefully so that it turns out smoothly. Press the workpiece down slightly on top so that the glue adheres well.

9. Now let’s crumple the white paper a little, cut it into small strips and glue the sides of the letter.

10. As a result, the entire letter should be covered with a thick layer of paper. When the glue dries and hardens, you will have a fairly strong structure.

11. All that remains is to paint our letters with acrylic paint. Acrylic paints cover many surfaces tightly and have good moisture resistance. I painted the initials with white paint, and the ampersand with rich coral.

This way you can make any letters to form names or words. They won't take too long, but they're not the fastest way either. It took me about 30-40 minutes to write one letter.

Happy creativity!

Volumetric letters can be useful for decorating a room or be a mandatory attribute at a party (for example, the initials of the bride and groom at a wedding). We offer you several master classes on how to make three-dimensional letters with your own hands. Schemes and templates for their manufacture can easily be made independently.

What types of three-dimensional letters are there?

Do-it-yourself volumetric letters can be made from the following materials:

Paper (for example, cardboard). Such letters are most often empty inside and very light. Suitable as room decor (they can be hung on the wall), holiday attribute or photography.
Fabrics (cotton, satin, felt, etc.). Such letters turn out to be very soft, so they are suitable not only as decoration and for photography, but they can also be used as beautiful and original pillows.
Foam plastic. Such letters are distinguished by the fact that they can easily be decorated with almost any material (for example, paints, ribbons, paper, flowers, rhinestones, and so on). They are as light as three-dimensional paper letters.

You can make templates with your own hands on plain paper. The purpose of their creation is to imagine what the final result will look like, correctly calculate the dimensions and choose the font.

What is needed to create three-dimensional letters from cardboard?

First of all, you need thick cardboard. By the way, it is not necessary to buy it. Boxes from household appliances and plumbing fixtures will also work.

You also need to take:

PVA putty;
color;
putty knife;
scotch;
scissors;
stationery knife;
a long ruler (at least thirty centimeters);
pencil;
sandpaper (fine-grained).

Operating procedure

Step-by-step instructions on how to make three-dimensional letters with your own hands from paper:

Using a pencil and ruler, draw the front and back of the letter on the cardboard.
Draw the sides of the letter next to each other. Make the length with a margin, and the width - any. If you want the letter to be able to be used independently, then the size should be approximately 1:4 (for example, the height of the letter is 20 centimeters and the width is 5 centimeters).
Take the tape and glue the side flap to one side of the letter. Then glue the other part.
Set the tone of the putty. To do this, add color to it. Remember that when the putty on the paper dries, it will become slightly lighter than in the jar.
Using a spatula, apply putty to the entire letter. Don't forget to caulk the joints.
Let the putty dry. This will take about twelve hours.
Gently smooth out any uneven surfaces using fine-grained sandpaper.

Three-dimensional letters made of cardboard, made by hand, are ready.

Foam letters

You will need:

Styrofoam;
PVA glue;
brush;
a large stationery knife (it is advisable to insert a new sharp blade);
covering material (for example, wallpaper, newspapers, colored paper, etc.);
decor (for example, satin ribbon).

Polystyrene foam can be purchased at almost any hardware store or you can take the one left over after purchasing large household appliances.

Master class on making

Creating foam letters requires some effort. And every step is performed very carefully. Otherwise, the figures will turn out sloppy and may even break.

Step-by-step instruction:

Take the foam and cut it into equal pieces. One rectangle - one letter.
If you have thin foam, then glue it in at least three layers. You can only use PVA or assembly glue; you cannot use superglue (for example, “Moment”), since its composition will corrode the foam.
Draw a letter design on each piece of foam. To do this, use a ruler and pencil. The simpler the font (meaning no curls), the simpler and neater the work will be.
Cut out the letters with a utility knife. Movements must be confident and firm.
You cannot leave the letters unprocessed, since the edges will still turn out uneven, no matter how carefully you work. Therefore, they need to be decorated. For example, cover them with paper.
Wait until the letters are completely dry.

If you want the letters to become wedding paraphernalia, then decorate them with beautiful decoupage paper, flowers or satin ribbons. Three-dimensional letters for a wedding, made by yourself, are ready!

Fabric letters

Fabric letters can be either hard or soft.

To create solids you will need to take the following tools and materials:

cardboard or foam;
scissors;
stationery knife;
pencil;
ruler;
scotch;
special glue gun;
beautiful fabric.

To create soft letters you will need to take the following tools and materials:

fabric (for example, cotton, felt, etc.);
filler (for example, padding polyester, padding polyester, cotton wool, holofiber, air fluff, cereal, and so on);
tailor's scissors;
a needle;
threads;
sewing machine (if you have one, it will greatly facilitate the work process).

Master class on creating solid type from fabric

Step-by-step instructions on how to make three-dimensional letters with your own hands from paper or foam, which are then covered with fabric:

First of all, take cardboard, a pencil and a ruler. Draw the letter pattern. Remember that you will need a front and back piece, as well as a side piece.
Using scissors, cut out all the cardboard elements needed to create the letters.
If you are making letters from foam, cut the material into as many pieces as you need letters. Draw a letter template on each of them. After this, cut out the shapes with a stationery knife with a sharp blade.
Lay out a piece of fabric with the reverse side in front of you.
Draw letters on the fabric. Each must be in two copies (front and back). Moreover, they will be larger in size than the finished figures. The sides are taken into account here. For example, if the width of the letter is ten centimeters, and the side is five centimeters, then the size of the template on the fabric should be thirteen to fourteen centimeters.
Cut out parts for the product from fabric.
Warm up the glue gun.
Carefully glue the fabric to the cardboard or foam model. First one side is glued, then the other. The fabric joints are carefully smoothed out.
Cover all the letters in the same way.

Solid volumetric fabric letters are ready!

Master class on creating soft letters from fabric

Step-by-step instructions on how to make soft letters from fabric:

Place the fabric with the reverse side in front of you. Draw the outlines of the product on it with chalk. For each letter you will need three parts - two sides (front and back) and one side.
Cut out all the details from the fabric. Do not forget to make a small indent from the edge (for example, if it is cotton or silk, then it will be one or two centimeters, if it is felt, then the indent can be made less). This is necessary so that the seams do not come apart over time and the fabric does not fray.
Sew a side piece to one side of the letter. You need to stitch with the wrong side of the fabric.
After this, sew one more side to the two parts. Leave a small hole through which you can then turn the product inside out and fill it.
Line up all the letters.
Turn the workpiece right side out. To make it more convenient, you can use a stick.
Push filler into each letter. Distribute it evenly around the entire perimeter of the figure. To push the filler into the corners, use the stick again.
Sew up the holes carefully with a hidden stitch.

Volumetric soft letters are ready.

They can be decorated if desired. For example, sew on ribbons or bows. Such letters will be both beautiful and useful. You can even sleep on them!

Foam letters can be painted only after applying a layer of white putty. Otherwise, the paint will simply be absorbed into the material.
You can decorate letters made of foam or fabric with flowers (real or artificial).
Do-it-yourself volumetric letters for a wedding can be made from any material. The main task is to arrange them correctly. And it is best to decorate such letters with beautiful decoupage paper, paste them with fabric or thread, or insert flowers into them (it is better if they are real, not artificial).
You can use twine or any other cord to decorate bulk products made of cardboard or polystyrene. To do this, smear the sides of the figure with glue, then wrap it tightly with lace.
Bright and shiny volumetric letters will be obtained if they are covered with sparkles or rhinestones. To make them hold tighter, use a glue gun.

We wish you creative success!

Over the past six months, the Internet has simply been flooded with the “letter” “th”. I met her on news sites, in instant messengers, on Habrahabr and geektimes. “What are we even talking about?” - you ask - “I see the usual letter y!” What a score. I see it like this:

If you're one of the lucky ones whose letter "y" looks just like a "real" "y", here's a trick for you: copy it (the letter "y") into Notepad, place the cursor at the end of the letter and press backspace. Magic, mind blowing!
How does this happen?

Graphemes, glyphs, code points, layout and bytes

A very short introduction:
A grapheme is what we are used to calling a letter in the sense of a unit of text. A glyph is a unit of graphics, and can graphically represent the grapheme itself or part of it (for example, various diacritics: accents, umlauts, superscript colon for the letter е, etc.).
Code Point is how text is written in Unicode representation. One grapheme can be written with different code points.
Code Points are encoded in different byte representations depending on the standard: UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32, BE, LE…
Programming languages typically work with code points; It's common for us humans to think in glyphs.

Let's finally figure out our letter th. What's so special about it?
This letter is one grapheme (“and” for short), but it is written with two code points:
U+000438 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER I U+000306 COMBINING BREVE
If you did the backspace trick, you actually erased the COMBINING BREVE, or, in typographic language, the brevity icon above the vowel.

The usual short letter “and”, which we are all accustomed to typing on the keyboard, is a composite character that is written with one code point:
U+000439 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER SHORT I
The display of diacritics depends on the font and renderer. For example, in the editing window of this post the symbol looks correct, but when viewed it moves. Some fonts can display diacritics separately even in composite characters.

Why is this bad?

Not all programs, and even less so websites, are able to convert code points to a form that allows you to compare identical glyphs written with different code points. In other words, not every program and website recognizes “th” and “th” as one character, which makes it impossible, for example, to search using such letters.

You don’t have to look far for an example: a relatively recent article with a review of the mouse on geektimes, a screenshot from which is given above in the article. Let's do a Google search for the following phrase, which seems to be in the article:
no one bothers you to create an “empty” profile

The post is the second result, and as you can see from the bolded part, we have a complete text match. Great, we open it and try to find the same text on the page and see that Firefox didn’t find anything:

A search on Geektimes also does not return any relevant results:

But as soon as you replace the composite “th” with its decomposite brother “th”, everything falls into place:

Apparently Google is somehow transforming the search query to allow you to search by glyphs rather than by their code points.
How it works?

Normalization

The Unicode Normalization Standard describes two character equivalents: Canonical and Compatibility. The first allows you to compare identical glyphs with different code points, and the second allows you to compare them with simplified analogues - ½ with 1/2, ℌ with H, etc.

There are also 4 types of normalization:

Normalization Form D (NFD)- canonical decomposition. Decompose cześć (hello in Polish) into c, z, e, c + ´, s + ´.
Normalization Form C (NFC)- will collect what the previous version laid out.
Normalization Form KD (NFKD)- compatibility decomposition. Will make 1/2 out of ½, 25 out of 2⁵.
Normalization Form KC (NFKC)- will try to collect what the previous one laid out.

If we talk about a site like Habrahabr, then it makes sense to perform NFC normalization of all posts before they are published, and subject the search query to NFKD processing.

In Python, for example, this can be done with the unicodedata module.

Hidden text

import sys
import unicodedata
print(unicodedata.normalize("NFKD", sys.argv))

Conclusion

I can’t say with complete certainty who is to blame for the appearance of “th” in RuNet, but suspicion falls on Google Docs. Fortunately, it looks like the bug has been fixed, because... I haven’t had to look at the crawling short for 3 weeks now.

Problems with glyphs also happen offline. Here is a photo of a real passport with a letter, probably “е” (CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER IE + COMBINING DIAERESIS)

Look at the pictures on slide 2 with your child. Listen to the first sounds in the words oriole and yogi. In the word oriole the first sound is [i]. When we pronounce this sound, air passes freely through the mouth without meeting any obstacles. You can drag it out for a long time and sing it. This is a vowel sound. It is denoted by the letter I. In the word yogi, the first sound is [th". The air in the mouth meets a barrier (the tongue interferes with us). This is a soft consonant. When pronounced, we hear a voice, this is a voiced consonant. This sound is denoted by the letter “and short”.

Watch a video about letters. Ask your child if he liked the video, what he liked, what he remembered. What is the difference between the letter I and Y?

Read the poems on the following slides. Let your child clap his hands when he hears new sounds. Look at slide 6. Name words with the letter I. Come up with your own words with the letter I.

Look at the pictures on slide 10. Name the words with the letter “and short”. Read the poem on slide 11. Please note that the sound [th"] can be in the middle or at the end of a word. Come up with such words.

Write the letters in the album. What does each letter look like? You can complete the letters to the image.

Look at the slides with pictures for each letter. Discuss what sounds are heard at the beginning of each word. Letter writing slides for first graders. Good luck!

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Letter "y": hard or soft? This question is very often asked by students who need to parse a word according to all the rules of phonetics. You will get the answer to this a little further.

General information

Before we talk about what kind of letter “th” is (soft or hard), you should find out why the letters of the Russian alphabet are generally divided according to such criteria.

The fact is that each word has its own sound shell, which consists of individual sounds. It should be noted that the sound of a particular expression is completely correlated with its meaning. At the same time, different words and their forms have completely different sound design. Moreover, the sounds themselves have no meaning. However, they play a vital role in the Russian language. After all, thanks to them we can easily distinguish words. Here's an example:

[house] - [lady´] - [house´ma];
[m’el] - [m’el’], [tom] - [there], [house] - [volume].

Transcription

Why do we need information about what type of letter “th” is (hard or soft)? When pronouncing a word, it is very important to correctly display the transcription that describes its sound. In such a system it is customary to use the following symbols:

This designation is called They must be used to indicate transcription.

[´] is the accent. It is placed if the word has more than one syllable.

[b’] - a kind of comma is placed next to the consonant letter and denotes its softness.

By the way, during phonetic analysis of words the following symbol is often used - [j]. As a rule, it denotes the sound of the letter “th” (sometimes a symbol such as [th] is used).

Letter "y": consonant or vowel?

As you know, in the Russian language all sounds are divided into consonants and vowels. They are perceived and pronounced completely differently.

Vowel sounds are those sounds during the pronunciation of which air easily and freely passes through the mouth, without encountering any obstacles on its way. Moreover, you can pull them, you can shout with them. If you put your palm to your throat, you can quite easily feel the work of the vocal cords during the pronunciation of vowels. There are 6 stressed vowels in the Russian language, namely: [a], [e], [u], [s], [o] and [i].
Consonant sounds are those sounds during the pronunciation of which the air encounters an obstacle on its way, namely a bow or a gap. Their appearance determines the nature of the sounds. As a rule, a gap is formed when pronouncing [s], [w], [z] and [z]. In this case, the tip of the tongue approaches the upper or lower teeth. The presented consonants can be drawn out (for example, [z-z-z], [z-z-z]). As for the stop, such a barrier is formed due to the closure of the speech organs. The air, or rather its flow, abruptly overcomes it, due to which the sounds are energetic and brief. That is why they are called explosive. By the way, it is impossible to pull them (try it yourself: [p], [b], [t], [d]).

In addition to the above consonants, the Russian language also has the following: [m], [y], [v], [f], [g], [l], [r], [ch], [ts], [x] . As you can see, there are many more of them than vowels.

Voiced and voiced sounds

By the way, many consonant sounds form pairs of deafness and voicedness: [k] - [g], [b] - [p], [z] - [c], [d] - [t], [f] - [v], etc. In total, there are 11 such pairs in the Russian language. However, there are sounds that do not have pairs on this basis. These include: [y], [p], [n], [l], [m] are unpaired voiced ones, and [ch] and [ts] are unpaired voiceless ones.

Soft and hard consonants

As you know, consonant letters differ not only in sonority or, conversely, deafness, but also in softness and hardness. This property is the second most important feature of sounds.

So, is the letter “th” hard or soft? To answer this question, you should consider each sign separately:

When pronouncing soft consonants, the entire tongue moves slightly forward, and its middle part rises slightly.
During the pronunciation of hard consonants, the entire tongue is literally pulled back.

It should be especially noted that many consonant letters form pairs with each other based on characteristics such as softness and hardness: [d] - [d’], [p] - [p’], etc. There are 15 such pairs in total. However, there are also sounds that do not have pairs on this basis. Which letters of hard consonant sounds are unpaired? These include the following - [w], [f] and [c]. As for the unpaired soft ones, these are [sch’], [h’] and [th’].

Designation on the letter

Now you know the information about whether the letter “th” is hard or soft. But here a new question arises: “How is the softness of such sounds indicated in writing?” Completely different methods are used for this:

The letters “e”, “yu”, “e”, “ya” after consonants (not counting “zh”, “sh”, and “ts”) indicate that these consonants are soft. Let's give an example: uncle - [d'a'd'a], aunt - [t'o't'a].
The letter “i” after consonants (not counting “zh”, “sh”, and “ts”) indicates that these consonants are soft. Let's give an example: cute - [m'i'ly'], leaf - [l'ist], ni´tki - [n'i´tk'i].
The soft sign (“b”) after consonants (not counting “zh” and “sh”) is an indicator of grammatical form. It also indicates that the consonants are soft. Examples: far - [dal’], stranded - [m’el’], request - [proz’ba].

As you can see, the softness of consonant sounds in writing is conveyed not by individual letters, but by their combinations with the vowels “e”, “yu”, “e”, “ya”, as well as a soft sign. That is why experts recommend paying attention to adjacent symbols.

As for the vowel letter “th”, it is always soft. In this regard, in transcription it is usually denoted as follows: [th’]. That is, the comma symbol, indicating the softness of the sound, must always be inserted. [ш'], [ч'] also obey the same rule.

Let's sum it up

As you can see, there is nothing difficult about doing any word correctly. To do this, you just need to know what vowels and consonants are, unvoiced and voiced, as well as soft and hard. For a better understanding of how transcription should be formatted, we will provide several detailed examples.

1. The word "hero". Consists of two syllables, with the 2nd being stressed. Let's do the analysis:

g - [g’] - voiced, consonant and soft.

e - [i] is an unstressed vowel.

p - [p] - voiced, consonant, unpaired and hard.

o - [o] - stressed vowel.

th - [th’] - voiced, consonant, unpaired and soft.

Total: 5 letters and 5 sounds.

2. The word "trees". Consists of three syllables, with the 2nd being stressed. Let's do the analysis:

d - [d’] - voiced, consonant and soft.

e - [i] is an unstressed vowel.

p - [p’] - voiced, consonant, unpaired and soft.

e - [e´] - stressed vowel.

in - [v’] - voiced, consonant and soft

e - [th’] - voiced, consonant, unpaired and soft and [e] - vowel, unstressed;

v - [f] - dull and hard.

Total: 8 letters and 8 sounds.