Jim's Art Desk

Jim's Art Desk

Image by FontShop
Jim has taken photographs of vintage signs for years. Lately he's taken to painting reproductions of those shots.

In FontCast’s search for typographic designers with interesting stories to tell we knew we didn't have to go far to find Jim Parkinson — he's just across the water from FontShop San Francisco in Oakland.

Jim is a Bay Area native, returning after a short stint at Hallmark in Kansas City to design the iconic logotype for Rolling Stone during its heyday in the early ’70s. That work led to hundreds of other magazine and newspaper nameplates (Newsweek, Billboard, Esquire, LA Times), band logos, and typeface designs over the next four decades.

At 69, Jim is still going strong, wielding FontLab and paintbrush to create new works of art. We met him at his home studio to talk about letters and life, from the days of beatniks and hippies to his takes on art school and businessmen (AKA “cigar-smoking twits”).

Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus Logo - original art

Image by FontShop
In FontCast’s search for typographic designers with interesting stories to tell we knew we didn't have to go far to find Jim Parkinson — he's just across the water from FontShop San Francisco in Oakland.

Jim is a Bay Area native, returning after a short stint at Hallmark in Kansas City to design the iconic logotype for Rolling Stone during its heyday in the early ’70s. That work led to hundreds of other magazine and newspaper nameplates (Newsweek, Billboard, Esquire, LA Times), band logos, and typeface designs over the next four decades.

At 69, Jim is still going strong, wielding FontLab and paintbrush to create new works of art. We met him at his home studio to talk about letters and life, from the days of beatniks and hippies to his takes on art school and businessmen (AKA “cigar-smoking twits”).

The Doobie Brothers logo - original art

Image by FontShop
In FontCast’s search for typographic designers with interesting stories to tell we knew we didn't have to go far to find Jim Parkinson — he's just across the water from FontShop San Francisco in Oakland.

Jim is a Bay Area native, returning after a short stint at Hallmark in Kansas City to design the iconic logotype for Rolling Stone during its heyday in the early ’70s. That work led to hundreds of other magazine and newspaper nameplates (Newsweek, Billboard, Esquire, LA Times), band logos, and typeface designs over the next four decades.

At 69, Jim is still going strong, wielding FontLab and paintbrush to create new works of art. We met him at his home studio to talk about letters and life, from the days of beatniks and hippies to his takes on art school and businessmen (AKA “cigar-smoking twits”).

Who's Josh Ledet? - a digital design question by mimitalks, married w/children

Image by mimitalks, married w/children
Who was Josh? and why did his name literally leap from a good deal of the business signs in my hometown, when we went "home" yesterday? And why, when he apparently was a local celebrity of some sort was his last name pronounced "La-det" instead of the good old Cajun pronunciation of "La-day"??

Why did his name pop up on the walls I could see on Facebook? Why did my nephew, a news reporter for the town's newspaper (where I had once worked as a layout artist) know more about him than I did? (which was nothing)

My kids didn't know who he was. (Face it, if you aren't on XBox 360 Live, you're not in their sphere of knowledge). But obviously, I should.

Ok, by now I had figured out he was on American Idol. Today's Star Search - but with no Ed McMahon. Though I'm not crazy about the show's name (we Bible believers know not to have "idols"), I knew about it. And I knew he was local, lived in a town close to my home town of Lake Charles, Louisiana. He actually lives in Westlake, Louisiana, across the lake from us in the sister town to Sulphur, Louisiana - the one made famous by Geraldo Rivera, when he reported from there during Hurricane Rita, the next major hurricane after the now-infamous Katrina.

And Josh Ledet (not La-day) sings. Because apparently this Saturday night www.americanpress.com/Josh-Ledet-thrills-packed-house-at-...
he performed to a "packed house" at Burton Coliseum, after arriving there on a Mardis Gras Float on his hometown visit as one of the 3 finalists on American Idol. I know, because my nephew covered the event and he (also a Bible believer) wouldn't lie to me.