San Francisco Font, Created by Susan Kare for Apple.

Early versions of Macintosh systems included a ransom note bitmap font called San Francisco, and there's a range of fonts still out there today that replicate this ransom note effect. But using a font like this feels generic, unoriginal. It's like using a handwriting font instead of using your own handwriting. If you make something yourself it is authentic and personal, and this comes through in the final design.

This challenge is a great way to get intimate with various letterforms, work with composition, texture, color, hierarchy, and concept development. I've often seen this technique of creating ransom note type show up as solutions in my students projects such as posters or book covers. I love it when that happens!

The challenge: Design a ransom note using found type. The note should express something that is currently going on in your life that you'd like to express. Use newspapers, magazines, and other printed matter. Try to make your statement brief, witty, and visually interesting. Conceptually the content of your words should relate to the design of the note.

Step 1: Gather the assets for your note by cutting out a variety of letters. Use larger letters for your message, and incorporate smaller type as texture. Tear the paper to add an unexpected element. Alter, cut, distress, rearrange, or manipulate the type. Push yourself to use the material in a creative way. You can also use a photocopier to replicate and scale the material.

Step 2: Assemble your composition using the adhesive of your choice (glue stick, rubber cement, double-sided tape). Composition size is 8 x 8 in.

Step 3: Scan in your final composition. You should always keep a digital record of work done by hand.

"I look forward to lunch every day, so what could be worse than discovering that your sandwich has been stolen? To further the impact I placed the ransom letters on a napkin, signaling the end of the sandwich was near." Elizabeth Mann

"I used sales receipts for the pony, since they are also monetary transaction documents. The background is made from obituaries, so if you look closely, this ransom note is more menacing than it may first appear." Rose Greenstein

"I was looking through all these luxury magazines and the thought just came to me: I want it all, and I want it now." Libby Clarke

'The joke at the office I currently work in is that the office managers will often post passive-aggressive notes in the kitchen (along the lines of "Whoever put the carbonated beverage in the freezer needs to stop NOW"). I wanted the message to take up as much of the allotted space as possible, to best convey the aggression. The crumpled body copy and scratched-up background surfaces are meant to further hint at the writer's agitation." Christine Park

Lara McCormick is the author of Playing with Type: 50 Graphic Experiments for Exploring the Creative Impact of Typographic Design Principles, due out in March 2013.