Show HN: Garden of Flowers – an archive of pictorial typography before ASCII art

A Show HN post about Garden of Flowers could have been a quiet little history drop about decorative printing tricks from long before computer text art existed. Instead, the comments turned it into a mini love-fest with a side of "actually, this goes even deeper." The project collects ornate examples of pictorial typography: letters, borders, and floral shapes made from printed ornaments, basically the old-school ancestors of the text pictures people later made with keyboard symbols.

The strongest reaction was pure delight. One user called it "damn amazing," another went with "Very cool," and the overall mood was intense admiration for a weirdly beautiful corner of design history most people never knew existed. But the thread didn’t stay at simple praise. One commenter immediately widened the lens, pushing the creator to look at Arabic calligraphy, arguing that entire passages of poetry and sacred text have long been turned into visual art. That wasn’t exactly a fight, but it did add a classic internet twist: lovely project, but have you considered this even bigger tradition?

And then came the charming grandparent-story energy. A commenter recalled a schoolroom full of 66 manual typewriters, where students typed careful patterns, hit returns, sometimes switched to red ink, and slowly built images by hand. In other words: before ASCII art, before screens, before memes—people were already grinding for the aesthetic. The vibe? Equal parts museum appreciation, niche history bragging, and nerds realizing their favorite "old internet" trick is actually much older than the internet.