When photographed just right, the bend of a wrought-iron beam or the curve of a stalk of wheat can look just like a letter of the alphabet. This creative observation captured the attention of photographer Crystal—a graduate of the New York Institute of Photography—who became inspired to seek out more outdoor features that could double as letters. With the help of her business-savvy husband, Lee, Crystal strung these letters into words and began selling them at an online store, Frame the Alphabet.

The site's interactive letter bank houses a vast collection of Crystal's photos, which can be used to spell out names and words on stationary, letter prints, and wood letter blocks. You may wish to work in visual thematics, crafting names entirely out of sports images for the family athlete or creating an ironic counterpoint to words such as nature with images of city signs, industrial faucets, and spinning cogs.