Every guy has their own beard style to communicate many things. You could sport a neat and serious beard, or a hobo-esque one, or one that screams "I'm a wizard."

New York-based designer Michael Allen took the communicative powers of facial hair to another level with Alphabeard Beardface. In nearly two years, he shaved his beard into the shape of every letter of the alphabet, and even included a period and comma.

“Many beards have been sacrificed for this project,” he writes on his website.

Allen started the project back in 2011. "The idea came from a joking conversation among design colleagues until I started thinking of it as a real design problem," Allen said. "I began sketching the ways I could make letterforms with the limitations of beard growth, including the bald patches, the gap around the mouth and amateur grooming skills."

He started by using an electric razor to sculpt his beard into the shape of the letter A. Several weeks later, he shaved the letters O, C, and L from a single beard, in stages. Every time he shaved a new letter, he'd have to wait three weeks to a month for his beard to grow back before starting the next one. "I continued casually until the end of 2013 when I finally crafted the last letter, the elusive K," he says.