John Downer (sign painter)

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]

John Downer
Downer in 2012
Born	(1951-01-30) January 30, 1951 (age 74) Tacoma, Washington, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation(s)	Typeface Designer, Logo Designer, Sign Painter
Years active	1969-present

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)