#CCCCCC is the color of ESCape.

I would like to design an actual cape called ESCape in this color, and sell it at a high end boutique for $1,337.00. When asked about its origins, salespersons would say the designer was “inspired by the color of ESCape keys on select 90s keyboards”, and that “Much like the backslash, the ESCape character was introduced to the ASCII codeset in 1960 by The Father of ASCII himself, Bob Bemer.” The color also reminds me of the power button on a Compaq Prolinea 4/33 486, but I don’t expect that narrative to resonate as strongly with my potential customer base.

As it happens, Bermer also introduced the curly brackets to computing; pretty handy if you’re looking to draw a one-line ASCII sword with a fancy crossguard:

@xxxx[{::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::>

Perhaps the branded tag for ESCape will be this sword as expressed in binary, which has moire pattern vibes:

01000000 01111000 01111000 01111000 01111000 01011011 01111011 00111010
00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 
00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010
00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010
00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010 00111010
00111010 00111110

If you are interested in funding the production of ESCape, please write me at ben.sisto@gmail.com.

Ben Sisto is an artist living in Brooklyn, New York. One of his projects is Web Safe 2k16.