Overview
This passion project started on a warm Sunday when I spotted hand-painted signage hanging in the windows of Little City Market, a family-run butcher shop in San Francisco's North Beach (Little Italy), operated by an Italian father and son. The lettering had a personality I hadn't seen digitized anywhere — similar fonts existed, but nothing quite like it — so I decided to bring it to life myself.
This passion project started on a warm Sunday when I spotted hand-painted signage hanging in the windows of Little City Market, a family-run butcher shop in San Francisco's North Beach (Little Italy), operated by an Italian father and son. The lettering had a personality I hadn't seen digitized anywhere — similar fonts existed, but nothing quite like it — so I decided to bring it to life myself.
Overview
This passion project started on a warm Sunday when I spotted hand-painted signage hanging in the windows of Little City Market, a family-run butcher shop in San Francisco's North Beach (Little Italy), operated by an Italian father and son. The lettering had a personality I hadn't seen digitized anywhere — similar fonts existed, but nothing quite like it — so I decided to bring it to life myself.
Process
I brought photos into Figma to trace — its vector tools were a natural fit for the relatively geometric shapes, though I also used Adobe Illustrator for refinements. The real challenge was the missing letters: since not every character was in the signage, I had to design them from scratch, staying true to the original style, through multiple rounds of testing in Birdfont and feedback from friends.
I brought photos into Figma to trace — its vector tools were a natural fit for the relatively geometric shapes, though I also used Adobe Illustrator for refinements. The real challenge was the missing letters: since not every character was in the signage, I had to design them from scratch, staying true to the original style, through multiple rounds of testing in Birdfont and feedback from friends.
Process
I brought photos into Figma to trace — its vector tools were a natural fit for the relatively geometric shapes, though I also used Adobe Illustrator for refinements. The real challenge was the missing letters: since not every character was in the signage, I had to design them from scratch, staying true to the original style, through multiple rounds of testing in Birdfont and feedback from friends.
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