I’ve been reluctant to say that I am a complete dork when it comes to typography. I can spend hours looking through font specimen books for no reason other than just to gawk. Subtle differences between similar fonts pass most people by, but to me, it’s the difference between good design and hasty choices. So when it comes to events in Los Angeles that showcase interesting type related design, it immediately goes in my calendar. Which makes me mad that I completely missed John Downer at ReserveLA last night.
The blame for this falls squarely on me. I’m just over a week behind on my blog reading, and that can really add up. After a day, I usually have somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 unread posts. So when I ran across this post on Hoefler & Frere-Jones’ blog, I knew I had missed something important.
John Downer started his career as a freelance type designer in 1983 and is a master sign painter by trade. The Propagandist has a slideshow here of his work. It’s a great read if you enjoy design and typography. You can also see the line of shirts John designed for Freshjive on slides 1 and 25.
I don’t know if the exhibit is still up, or if it was a one night thing. I’ll update as soon as I know.