Iowan Old Style is a

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

serif In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ( ...

typeface A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...

Bitstream A bitstream (or bit stream), also known as binary sequence, is a sequence of bits. A bytestream is a sequence of bytes. Typically, each byte is an 8-bit quantity, and so the term octet stream is sometimes used interchangeably. An octet may ...

in 1991. Iowan Old Style is inspired by serif typefaces from

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, now called the “ old-style” or Venetian model of typeface design, with influence from Downer’s work as hand-painter of signs. 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. It is used as a default font on the Apple Books application and is included as a system font on

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

and

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

Design

Downer has described the design "more Venetian than Aldine" and influenced by lettering. It has diamond-dots (tittles) on the “i” and “j” similar to the

Arts and Crafts The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...

-influenced Goudy Old Style. Iowan began as a design for ITC, but after the company dropped plans to release it, the font was bought up by

Matthew Carter Matthew Carter (born 1 October 1937) is an English type designer.A Man of Letters

, who digitized and released it.

later revisited the design, adding

ornaments An ornament is something used for decoration. Ornament may also refer to: Decoration *Ornament (art), any purely decorative element in architecture and the decorative arts *Ornamental turning *Biological ornament, a characteristic of animals tha ...

and titling capitals. The character set includes

small capitals In typography, small caps (short for small capitals) are characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. Small caps are used in running ...

and ligatures, as well as Cyrillic characters. Stephen Coles, an expert on digital fonts, describes its design as “hardworking.”

Gallery

File:Oscar wilde english renaissance of art 2.png, An extended setting of a text by

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwright ...

in Iowan Old Style, showing justified text and leading between the lines. File:Iowan Old Style x-height.png, Iowan Old Style’s x-height compared to other serif fonts: higher than

Caslon Caslon is the name given to serif typefaces designed by William Caslon, William Caslon I in London, or inspired by his work. Caslon worked as an Engraving, engraver of Punchcutting, punches, the masters used to stamp the moulds or Matrix (printi ...

and

Bembo Bembo is a serif typeface created by the British branch of the Monotype Imaging, Monotype Corporation in 1928–1929 and most commonly used for body text. It is a member of the "Serif#Old-style, old-style" of serif fonts, with its regular or ro ...

, used in fine book printing, but lower than Lucida Bright which is intended for maximum legibility.

References

External links

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

- Luc Devroye's page on Downer and other Iowa-based type designers {{OS X typefaces Digital typefaces Typefaces with text figures Old style serif typefaces Typefaces designed by John Downer (sign painter)