This is my poster design using the alternative representation letters.  It took me a while to figure out how to arrange the letters so that you could actually read my name (and still look good).  I used rounded rectangles as the clipping masks and made them all about the same height (except for my first name which I enlarged to fill up space).  The background is a lot more complicated (I was having fun).  The first layer of the background is actually a personal picture of a Thanksgiving table (turned sideways) with an extreme Gaussian blur; on top of that is a picture of wierd clouds which I decreased the opacity on to provide a texture, and finally, on top of that is another abstract texture that was a "happy accident" created in photoshop using the clone stamp tool on a Gaussian blurred picture of cobblestones.  For the finishing touch, I connected different sizes of black, rounded rectangles to tone down the background and unite it with the letters in my name.