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An iconograph is a picture formed by a word or words. It can take the form of irregularly shaped letters or (especially in the case of poems) irregularly aligned text.

American poet May Swenson popularized such poems in her 1970 book Iconographs, which contained a number of poems laid out to resemble their subjects (e.g. a butterfly):

A word iconograph of the initials VDC as an eye.

A word-poem or iconograph by May Swenson, Unconscious came a beauty (1970), featuring a butterfly, referred to as Red spotted purple or Mourning cloak.