Pentimento

Typeface Design

Pentimento is truly a labor of love masquerading as a hand designed typeface. It began as an experiment, to collect samples from my grandparents, parents and sister to see just if handwriting could in some ways be inherited. In doing so I sought to merge the samples to create a visual representation of family, specifically my own, and highlight the similarities and intriguing differences amongst each individual’s handwriting. I used samples that I traced in Procreate, piecing together bits of the letterforms to make new ones. I digitized these final letterforms into vector images and transferred them to Glyphs to build a working typeface with two uppercase and two lowercase options for each letter. I built a website to display them and demonstrate the process while expressing just what I learned and gained from the act of creating it. It became a way of using design for self documentation and exploration, as well as a way to work through grief and find hope in a new way of connecting with the people who made me.    

Procreate, Illustrator, Glyphs, WordPress

Typeface Design, Web Design

Mia Culbertson- Mentor

Josh Miller- Mentor 

2022

© 2022 Sam Dillman. All rights reserved.  For educational purposes only.