font_designer: John Downer

Iowan Old Style

Iowan Old Style font

Iowan Old Style was designed for Bitstream in 1990 by noted sign painter John Downer. Iowan Old Style is a hardy contemporary text design modeled after earlier revivals of Jenson and Griffo typefaces but...

Roxy

Roxy font

Impressed with the strength and the clarity of John Downer’s personal “thick/thin” signwriting style, a fitness magazine commissioned a single weight of Roxy in 1990 to stress its headlines. Mildly compact widths and moderate...

SamSans

SamSans font

John Downer designed SamSans in 1993 in reaction to Sam Berlow’s request for a casual, condensed sans. The series, replete with alternate characters in every style, is executed in informal Downer style, vivid with...

Ironmonger

Ironmonger font

Ironmonger was inspired by lettering painted on masonry walls and fascia signs of warehouses and factories in older American cities. The slab serif capitals and figures are made up of precisely plotted and carefully...