Hi, I’m Silas Dilworth.

This is my personal Web site. I live in Chicago. I am a typeface designer (or type designer), Web programmer and all-around resourceful autodidact. This website serves as a casual portfolio of my original typefaces, custom font commissions, website designs and web programming achievements.

Chronology

Whether you’re going to have me design a custom font, build a website, or are merely stalking me, I give you the following abridged outline of my life-story insofar that it may satisfy these seemingly disparate scenarios.

1975

Born Aquarius and raised in upstate New York.

1993

Attended first semester at Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, NY.

1994-1996

Left school to work full-time for a national health insurance company in OCR claims processing.
Interest in digital typography is seeded.
Photocopiers exploited.

1996-1998

Returned to MWPAI to complete the two year program.
Sowed mountains of wild oats.

1999-2001

Transferred to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with merit scholarships.
Independent study as Communications Director for the Student Union Galleries.
Admitted into the Advanced Painting Studios.
Worked extensively with digital imaging techniques, text, and mass-media sources.
Employed as part-time graphics coordinator at Whole Foods Market.
Taught myself Fontographer having to repair old T.26 fonts.
Received BFA in May 2001.
Joined T.26 Digital Type Foundry upon graduation as font technician, type designer, webmaster, office admin, paralegal, heavy laborer and ass-kisser.

2001-2004

Acted as Communications Director for 1R Gallery.
Served at T.26 maintaining the website and font library, producing custom font designs, editing new font releases, designing and writing promotional material for print and web and managing legal paperwork.

2005

Discharged from T.26 for not kissing enough ass.
Taught myself FontLab and the magic of Opentype.
Contracted as Designer for Bridge NFP (ie: Nova/Bridge Art Fair, Bridge Magazine)
Taught myself the magic of Cascading Style Sheets.
Co-founded TypeTrust, a font distribution partnership.

2006

Taught myself PHP and MySQL integration.
Kept busy with various web and custom type design gigs.
Accepted a salary position with VSA Partners specializing in type design and visual identity development.

2007

Developed some new corporate type for IBM.
Dislodged myself from VSA Partners to resume the life of a scruffy-looking nerf herder.
Set up shop with fellow Segura survivor Ryan Halvorsen (aka arlo-tm.com) in a Ukrainian Village storefront.

2008

Expanded the Majestos Pro custom font family for Food Network.
Keeping comfortably busy.

Leisure

Designing typefaces, selling fonts through TypeTrust, typography, website design, graphic design, culinary hacking, paying the bills, making some art on occasion, collecting small 2D works, avoiding dairy, fixing up der Fünfer, modding the KLR.