I made funny symbols by layering the english letters of a word, one on top of the other- then rearranging the shapes until it tickled my brain right. when I added more and more symbols, I started setting precedents; special shapes became associated with existing codes like the triangles in rabbit and canine, binding them to each other as something altogether animal. some symbols aren't a combination of letters at all, but an extent of other words I already designed, like big being the mirror image of little, or the combination of boy and girl. I came up with little shorthands for concepts that I ran into a lot, like place and action, that I could add to a symbol to nudge you in the right direction. the double-slash started as a way to cross out a letter I formed by accident, but it can also just mean NO.