John Downer (signpainter)

Updated on Oct 05, 2024

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Nationality American		Years active 1969-present

Occupation Typeface Designer, Logo Designer, Sign Painter

John Downer (1951-) is an American sign painter, typeface designer 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 Cooper Union.

Typeface designs

Iowan Old Style - Aldine old-style serif

Roxy (Font Bureau) - stroke-modulated sans-serif

Triplex Italic (Emigre)

Brothers (Emigre) - 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

References

John Downer (signpainter) Wikipedia

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