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Parkinson Type Design [Jim Parkinson]

Jim Parkinson's Parkinson Type Design is based in Oakland, CA. This prolific type designer was born in 1941 in Richmond, CA, and lives in Oakland, CA. Originally, a letterer, he went digital in 1990. His Keester and Azuza typefaces won awards at the TDC2 Type Directors Club's Type Design Competition 2002. MyFonts on Jim Parkinson and on his Parkinson Foundry. His impressive output:

• Typefaces at the Parkinson Foundry: Fresno (2001, inline gothic), Hotel (2001, inline caps), Azuza (2001, a Latin serif family designed for newsprint; some italics were based on Dwiggins' Electra), Amboy (2001, inline like for signpainting), Chuck (2004, a display titling face), Richmond (2003, a geometric sans family in the spirit of Dwiggins' Metro, Erbar by Jakob Erbar and the Underground type of Edward Johnston), Modesto (2001, strikingly similar to John Downer's Panatela, even though both admit that this an unbelievable coincidence; Parkinson's copperplate gothic evolved from Parkinson's lettering on the famous Ringling Bros. and Barnum&Bailey Circus logo), Balboa (2001, a 19th century style condensed sans; extended to a wonderful chromatic layering typeface family in 2015 as Balboa Plus), Sutro (2003, a 19-style slab serif family), Wigwag (2003, a display family inspired by the mid-twentieth century Speedball lettering of Ross George and the work of Samuel Welo and Cecil Wade), Amador (2004, blackletter), Cabazon (2005, blackletter), Avebury (2005, blackletter based on types from the Caslon Foundry), and the lovely Benicia (2003, influenced by GoldenType). He writes about Azuza: In the 1990s I drew a text face for the San Francisco Chronicle. It was based on W. A. Dwiggins's Electra and incorporated many features of the Linotype Legibility Series: More compact, with a taller lowercase X-height, etc. That type was called Electric and it was the Chronicle's text face for nearly a decade, surviving several redesigns. From that, I made Azuza, a more detailed and sensitive style.
• At ITC (now Linotype), he designed ITC Bodoni, ITC Bodoni Twelve, ITC Bodoni Seventy Two, ITC Roswell Two, ITC Roswell Four (1998) and ITC Roswell Three (1998).
• His typefaces at Font Bureau include Antique Condensed Two, Buster, Comrade (1998, nice poster font, after the constructivist lettering by Belgian artist Jozef Peeters), El Grande (1991, fat display face), Parkinson (1994), Poster Black (1993), Showcard Gothic (1997), Showcard Moderne.
• At the Agfa Creative Alliance, he published Showcard Moderne, Antique Condensed Two, Bonita, Commerce Gothic (1998), Diablo (1996), Dreamland (1999, retro-futuristic), Fancy Stuff (1999), Generica Condensed (1994, grotesk), Industrial Gothic (1997), Mojo (1996; psychedelic, in the lettering style that was popularized by 1960s San Francisco artists Wes Wilson and Rick Griffin), Pueblo (1998).
• At Adobe, one can find Montara, his striking and psychedelic Mojo, and the gorgeous Jimbo.
• At FontFont, we have the FF Moderne Gothics series [FF Motel Gothic (1996), FF Matinee Gothic (1996), FF Goldengate Gothic (1996)] and FF Catch Words (1996).
• At Chank, he created Keester (2001).
• He designed the 4-weight family Electric for the San Francisco Chronicle (it was close to Dwiggins' Electra), but the Chronicle is no longer using it.
• Parkinson Electra (also based on Dwiggins's type) was published by Linotype in 2010.
• Typefaces from 2012: Meatball (fat lettering-style typeface), Hoosier Daddy (Western font).
• The list of newspapers and magazines using his fonts: Activa, Atlanta Journal, Birkenstock, Boston, Brownsville Herald, The Daily Cardinal, Charlotte Observer, Charleston Post&Courier, Chicago Tribune, The Citizen, Journal of Comm, Cromos, Daily Californian, Dallas Morning News, Rochester D&C, Financial Morgen, Design Magazine, Detroit Free Press, Editor&Publisher, El Graphico, National Enquirer, Entrepreneur, Esquire, SF Examiner, The New Examiner, Fast Company, New Fast Company, Montreal Gazette, Hamilton Spectator, Herman Miller, Ilta=Sanomat, InStyle, Kathemerini, Las Vegas Life, Newsweek.
• Typefaces from 2014: Sutro Deluxe (a layered chromatic wood type emulation font family that extends his 2003 font, Sutro).
• Typefaces from 2017: Sutro Initials (a chromatic layered pair of fonts), Aluminia (a revival of Dwiggins's Electra) designed exclusively for use in Bruce Kennett's book on W.A. Dwiggins.

MyFonts interview. FontShop link. More FontShop material on him. Klingspor link.

View Jim Parkinson's typefaces.

EXTERNAL LINKS
Parkinson Type Design
 [Buy fonts]
 [Designer info]
Fontspring link [Buy fonts]
Monotype link
Monotype foundry link
Klingspor Museum page
MyFonts search
Monotype search
Fontspring search
Google search

INTERNAL LINKS
Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Commercial fonts (small outfits) ⦿ Blackletter fonts ⦿ Type scene in California ⦿ Psychedelic types ⦿ Modern style [Bodoni, Didot, Walbaum, Thorowgood, Computer Modern, etc.] ⦿ Type design and constructivism ⦿ Futurism ⦿ Western fonts ⦿ Caslon ⦿ Wood Type ⦿ Multicolor typefaces ⦿ Multicolor typefaces ⦿ Circus fonts ⦿