American sign painter, typeface and logo designer (born 1951)
John Downer
Downer in 2012
Born (1951-01-30 ) January 30, 1951 (age 73) Nationality American Occupation(s) Typeface Designer, Logo Designer, Sign Painter Years active 1969-present
John Downer (born 1951) is an American sign painter, typeface and logo designer.[ 1] [ 2] Downer began his career as a painter of signs.[ 3] [ 4] [ 5] Among his best-known digital fonts are Iowan Old Style , Roxy, Triplex Italic , and Brothers.[ 6] [ 7] [ 8]
Downer studied at Washington State University and the University of Iowa .[ 9] [ 10] [ 11] [ 12] His work was featured amongst that of others in the 2014 documentary Sign Painters .[ 13] [ 14] [ 15] He has lectured on type and sign design at conferences and at The Cooper Union .[ 16]
Typeface designs
Iowan Old Style - Venetian old-style serif
Roxy (Font Bureau) - stroke-modulated sans-serif
Triplex Italic (Emigre)
Brothers (Emigre ) - chamfered display wedge-serif influenced by nineteenth-century lettering[ 17]
Paperback (House Industries) - text serif face with optical sizes
SamSans - humanist sans-serif
Vendetta (Emigre) - inspired by old-style Venetian serif fonts but with sharpened serifs
Council (Emigre) - condensed display wedge-serif , capitals-only
Ironmonger (Font Bureau) - angular all-caps display alphabet inspired by lettering on buildings
Simona (Design Lab) - serif, similar to the work of Fournier and Bodoni
Proprietary typefaces
Gonnick [for cartoonist Larry Gonnick]
Screenmax (bitmap serif typefaces at 7 pixel x-height in Roman, Italic, Bold and Black)
References
^ Downer, John. "The Art of Founding Type" . Emigre . Retrieved 19 August 2015 .
^ "A sign painter at work" . Kombinat . Archived from the original on 11 September 2016. Retrieved 5 May 2016 .
^ Hoefler, Jonathan . "John Downer at The Propagandist" . Hoefler & Frere-Jones . Retrieved 21 January 2016 .
^ "Défense D'Af: Faux Ghostsign from John Downer" . Ghost Signs (blog) . 22 December 2013. Retrieved 5 May 2016 .
^ Hansford, Vanessa. "Sign Painter, John Downer" . The Simple Things . Retrieved 5 May 2016 .
^ Butterick, Matthew . "Iowan Old Style" . Typography for Lawyers . Archived from the original on January 16, 2015. Retrieved 2 August 2015 .
^ Berry, John (9 February 2001). "An American Typeface Comes of Age" . dot creative . Retrieved 2 August 2015 .
^ Downer, John. "Call It What It Is" . Emigre . Retrieved 20 March 2016 .
^ "Alastair Johnston interviews John Downer" (PDF) . Alastair Johnston . Retrieved 21 February 2016 .
^ Thomas, Shelbi. "The Iowan Type" . Iowa Alumni Magazine . University of Iowa Alumni Association. Retrieved 5 May 2016 .
^ Peters, Yyves. "An Exhibition of Hand Lettered Posters by John Downer" . FontFeed . Retrieved 5 May 2016 .
^ "Iowa Digital Library collections: John Downer, signpainter" . University of Iowa . Retrieved 30 October 2021 .
^ Peters, Yyves. "Sign Painters Movie Explores Contemporary Sign Painting" . Font Feed . Retrieved 5 May 2016 .
^ Uuong, An (29 July 2014). "Sign Painters: a Sign of the Times" . Artscope . Retrieved 5 May 2016 .
^ Davies, Bree. "Sign Painters Shines A Colorful Light on the History of a Hidden Craft" . Westword . Retrieved 5 May 2016 .
^ "Introduction to Sign Painting" . Cooper Union . Retrieved 5 May 2016 .
^ Heck, Bethany (2 October 2017). "Brothers review" . Font Review Journal . Retrieved 13 September 2019 .
External links