Hello! Welcome. Welcome. My name is John Twentyfive—as stated in huge red letters on the front page. I’m a designer from the city of Seattle, in the state of Washington. I tend to live in the branding, lettering, and marketing world, but occasionally venture out to do social media and email campaigns and I also have a background in print and packaging design. I also like drawing Halloween looking stuff, but I’m open to other things.
Sooooo, why does it say “WE ARE 1025” at the top of your page…and in your url…and in your Instagram handle? Are you a team? Do you have multiple personalities? Have you been cloned? 🤔 Excellent questions, all. The answer is a bit simpler and even less important.
1. It’s a reference to a song called “We Are 138” by the Misfits (if you know them, great, if you don’t, it genuinely does not matter), with the numbers replaced with what is ostensibly my name, J being the 10th letter of the alphabet and 25 being my last name. Again, front page. We Are J25.
B. In all honesty, I like the sound of the “We Are” bit, because at the end of the day, design is about collaboration and working together. You may hire me to work at your company or do design for you, but in the end WE ARE working together to solve whatever problem you need solved. So while you are not me, we are collaborators.
Contact ME/us ➔
CITY OF SEATTLE,
STATE OF WASHINGTON
Yes, spelled just like the number. All one Word. No hyphen.
It’s Italian—Originally.
I grew up in a small town in upstate NY called Shortsville. It’s right off the NY State Thruway about 30 minutes south east of Rochester, NY. I’m the son of a restaurant owner (my Dad) and a nurse (my Mom), and for all intents and purposes I had a relatively normal childhood, except for, you know…my last name. Being a kid is hard enough, but being a kid with a number as a last name can go one of two ways. And there wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t have to answer a question or got clowned on because of it. Even now, as a mid-40’s adult, I have to explain it and tell the story of where it came from…and that’s why you’re here, right? Let’s get to it.
My Dad and I just outside of his restaurant, which was an old train depot—I’m on the right. 😉
My grandfather came to the states in the early 1900’s with his brothers from Italy. He was around 17 years old. Imagine getting on a ship at 17—NOW, in 2024—and sailing halfway around the world, let alone over 100 years ago. Insanity. Anyway, when he got here he split up from his brothers and ended up joining the military. An easy pathway to citizenship for immigrants was to enlist and serve their new country. They do their time, get discharged, and—poof—you’re an American. Well, my grandfather’s drill sergeant happened to be Italian and he had no intention of calling my grandfather by his Italian name, which was Giovanni Antonio Venticinque—John Anthony Twentyfive. My grandfather wanting to be a “real *medigan’” was only happy to accept his new name. Like when people get married, when discharged from the military as an immigrant, you get to pick your legal name. My grandfather chose John Twentyfive, cause by then that’s who he was.
*medigan’ – non-Italian american/Italian who has lost his roots (americano) [meh-dee-GAAN]