Jim Parkinson

Bio

Jim Parkinson (1941–2025), was a lifelong man of letters and the founder of Parkinson Type Design. Jim was one of the designers who worked on ITC Bodoni, along with Sumner Stone, Holly Goldsmith, and Janet Prescott Fishman. He designed Parkinson Electra for Monotype and has done a number of custom fonts for magazines and newspapers. In addition to his custom font work, Jim designed dozens of retail fonts. Some of these designs are exclusives for Adobe and Monotype, while the rest were released through Parkinson Type Design. Jim also specialized in typographic logos for magazines and newspapers, including Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Esquire, InStyle, Men’s Journal, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Detroit Free Press, the Toronto Star and The National Post. In a rare departure from publication work, Jim designed the logo for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. He was also a wonderful painter with most of his paintings being on the subject of letterforms.