This font was created with FontLab8, inspired by the maps of early Portuguese explorers in honor of my own family’s background. The process began with sketching imitations of the handwritten letters on maps, and then imagining and sketching what the figures that weren’t included would look like based on the figures that were featured. I recreated these shapes in FontLab and reused certain elements between figures to make sure they shared certain forms and that a clear relationship between the letters was visible. Some of my favorite figures inluded the uppercase b, uppercase N, and lowercase g. It is in these letters that the handwritten quality of the original maps is best seen. For my final presentation of the font, I typed out the names of the Acores Islands (Portugal), where my paternal grandparents are originally from, then arranged them over a map of the Acores so that they would relate to each other’s positions exactly like the islands do. I then used this structure as a frame to help me position and design the rest of the full specimen. The final product was a printed 30x40 in. poster.