Iowan Old Style is a digital serif typeface designed by John Downer and released by Bitstream in 1991.[1]
 | |
| Category | Serif |
|---|---|
| Classification | Old-style |
| Designer(s) | John Downer |
| Foundry | Bitstream |
Iowan Old Style is inspired by serif typefaces from Renaissance Italy, now called the “old-style” or Venetian model of typeface design, with influence from Downer’s work as hand-painter of signs.[2][3][4]
Compared to the historical models it is based on, Iowan has a higher x-height, meaning that the lower-case letters are taller and appear larger and wider, producing a design that is suitable for display and on-screen use.[5] It is used as a default font on the Apple Books application and is included as a system font on iOS and macOS.[6][7]
Design
editDowner has described the design "more Venetian than Aldine" and influenced by lettering.[4] It has diamond-dots (tittles) on the “i” and “j” similar to the Arts and Crafts-influenced Goudy Old Style.[1]
Iowan began as a design for ITC, but after the company dropped plans to release it, the font was bought up by Matthew Carter of Bitstream, who digitized and released it.[4] Bitstream later revisited the design, adding ornaments and titling capitals.[1] The character set includes small capitals and ligatures, as well as Cyrillic characters. Stephen Coles, an expert on digital fonts, describes its design as “hardworking.”[8]
Gallery
edit-
An extended setting of a text by Oscar Wilde in Iowan Old Style, showing justified text and leading between the lines. -
Iowan Old Style’s x-height compared to other serif fonts: higher than Caslon and Bembo, used in fine book printing, but lower than Lucida Bright which is intended for maximum legibility.
References
edit- ^ a b c Berry, John. "An American Typeface Comes of Age". dot creative. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
- ^ Butterick, Matthew. "Iowan Old Style". Typography for Lawyers. Archived from the original on January 16, 2015. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
- ^ Hoefler, Jonathan. "John Downer at The Propagandist". Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Retrieved 21 January 2016.
- ^ a b c Johnston, Alastair. "Alastair Johnston interviews John Downer" (PDF). Alastair Johnston. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
- ^ "Iowan Old Style". Identifont. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
- ^ Coles, Stephen. "Apple iBooks 1.5". Fonts In Use. Retrieved 21 January 2016.
- ^ Berry, John. "Text on the pages of iBooks". Easily Amused. Retrieved 21 January 2016.
- ^ "Recommended book text fonts". Fontshop. Retrieved 21 January 2016.
External links
edit- Commercial release (MyFonts)
- Fonts in Use
- Font designer John Downer - Klingspor Museum article on John Downer's work
- 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