His work blended classic design with a loose ’60s-style energy, giving publications like Rolling Stone an identity that radiated with gravitas and personality.

Jim Parkinson, a renowned lettering artist whose hand-drawn logos branded the covers of Rolling Stone, Esquire, Newsweek and dozens of other publications during the heyday of print journalism in the 1960s and ’70s, died on June 26 at his home in Oakland, Calif. He was 83.

The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, his wife, Dorothy A. Yule, said.

Using a mechanical pencil and a dip pen before computers took over his profession — and the media — Mr. Parkinson drew letters that blended classic design with a loose ’60s-style energy, giving publications an identity that radiated with gravitas and personality.

“He was working during the analog heyday of commercial lettering,” Roger Black, a prominent design consultant, said in an interview. “His work was never slick or sleek. It had a