John Downer (born 1951) is an American sign painter, typeface and logo designer. Downer began his career as a painter of signs. Among his best-known digital fonts are Iowan Old Style, Roxy, Triplex Italic, and Brothers.
Downer studied at Washington State University and the University of Iowa. His work was featured amongst that of others in the 2014 documentary Sign Painters. He has lectured on type and sign design at conferences and at The Cooper Union.
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 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
External links Schriftdesigner John Downer - Klingspor Museum article on John Downer's work (German) John Downer Speedballs (Typographica) Sostav (Russian) - page on Downer's lettering and influences Type design in Iowa - Luc Devroye's page on Downer and other Iowa-based type designers MyFonts John Downer: Paper signs John Downer, TYPO Berlin (German) Font Bureau profile page