Photo of Jim Parkinson
http://www.fontbureau.com/people/JimParkinson/
Jim Parkinson, who was born in 1941, was always interested in letter design. He graduated from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland with a degree in advertising design.
Jim Parkinson designed a lot of newspaper and magazine nameplates. He made the logos for Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey Circus and for Rolling Stone, American rock magazine.
After graduation he worked at Hallmark. He worked with Myron McVay – the primo lettering artist in the art department at Hallmark. Myron McVay taught him a lot about type design and lettering.
After working for Hallmark, Jim Parkinson came back to Bay Area and began designing logotypes and nameplates for Newsweek, Fast Company, San Francisco Examiner and Esquire. He decided to be an independent lettering artist.
He created a lot of different fonts. His fonts are interesting and remind old styles and shapes. He designed some graphic fonts, such as Poster Black and El Grande. Poster Black font is solid and powerful. El Grande is a soft gothic font. This font was used in comic books, for presentation in American grocery stores, in supermarket, in catalogues. Modesto is one of them, it is a hand-lettering and sign painter lettering style. It was used for posters, book covers and advertising in the ’60s and ‘70s. Jimbo is a friendly serif display typeface, it was great for advertising, signs, packaging and brochures. Avebury, another one of Parkinson’s creations, is a cheeky and ultra black letter. It was often used for art catalogue, rock t-shirts and beer label. I often seen this or very similar fonts myself.
Font Poster Black
Font El Grande
Font Modesto
Font Jimbo
Font Averby
Now Parkinson designs logos and fonts, paints, draws and takes photos. He has his own company, called Parkinson Type Design.
Overall Parkinson created over three dozen of retail fonts, and his fonts were purchased by such companies as by Adobe, Agfa/Monotype, FontShop, The Font Bureau, and ITC.
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