Palindrome Art

Palindrome Art is named for founder Hannah Pearlman's first name, which reads the same backward; her Providence-designed cards run on puns and Jewish values.

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Based: Providence, Rhode Island
Craft: Illustration, hand lettering, murals

Hannah Pearlman knew as a kid that she wanted to be an artist, but her mom told her the only way to make money at it was architecture. A kids' architecture class at RISD revealed that she hated math, so the dream went on the shelf, and she spent more than ten years working for nonprofits. Calligraphy, a hobby, became a side hustle. Clients started asking for things like logos, so she went back to school for graphic design and found her way to illustration.

Her greeting cards are designed in-house in Providence, Rhode Island, and printed in the USA, and they lean hard on wordplay, like the latke card at ModernTribe that wishes you a grate Hanukkah. She points to hiddur mitzvah, the Jewish idea that making beautiful things is itself holy, and sees art as a tool for kindness, justice and repair, shaped by her Jewish heritage and "the joyful chaos of being a mom."

Hannah also paints murals, including a 200th-anniversary piece for B'nai Jeshurun in New York and walls at Providence Hebrew Day School and the Dwares Jewish Community Center.