If Canada had a Typographer Laureate, Rod McDonald would be a candidate. Since his career began in the mid- 1970s, McDonald’s work as a graphic designer, lettering artist, educator, historian, and prolific writer has encompassed virtually every aspect of the typographic arts. Despite his success as a lettering artist, however, it was 20 years before McDonald tackled his first typeface design.

“I felt that my career had plateaued,” he recalls. “I was doing a lot of wordmarks and corporate alphabets, but yearned to do more. I wanted to produce a true typeface design.” McDonald’s first undertaking was a detailed and sensitive revival of Carl Dair’s Cartier. Originally released in 1967 to celebrate Canada’s centennial, Cartier was the first text typeface designed in Canada. McDonald’s digital revival, Cartier Book, refined Dair’s sometimes problematic design and expanded it into a fully functional type family that is both distinctive and remarkably legible.

The downfall of Cartier is that it is lettering and not a typeface. Lettering and calligraphy allow for individuality in character shapes. In a text typeface, however, each letter must carry the information necessary to easily identify it as belonging to that font. The most difficult task in typeface design is producing an anonymous letter that still possesses verve. The individuality Dair gave Cartier precluded it from being a successful text typeface. The story of how Dair’s design idea became a typeface design begins when McDonald moved to Toronto. “I went to work for Mono Lino, the company who had exclusive Canadian rights to Cartier. I was, of course, seduced by the design and tried to use it often—but just couldn’t make it work as a proper text face.”

From time to time, McDonald would experiment with Cartier, trying to transform it from lettering to a typeface, never reaching a successful conclusion. The project, however, soon became McDonald’s passion. “I was intimately familiar with the design, and, thanks to Massey College of the University of Toronto, was able to spend lots of time with Dair’s original sketches and more finished renderings. I began to understand what he was trying to accomplish. My goal was to become the drawing office that Dair never had and distill his idea into a typeface design.”

When asked what is the most significant difference between his design and the original Cartier, McDonald’s answer is simple, direct, and telling of what it takes to make a successful text typeface family. “Dair’s accomplishment was the design. I tried to make it a working typeface. I spent the first year doing that: cleaning up the inconsistencies, removing the quirks—basically regularizing the design. The next year was spent putting energy back into the typeface; giving it back the life Dair gave it. That second year was the hardest.”

SMART SANS
McDonald’s next typeface is a personal tribute to Leslie (Sam) Smart, the first type director to be hired by a major typesetting house in Canada. Smart was a design pioneer who was instrumental in raising the standards of Canadian typography in the middle of the last century.

Shortly after Smart’s death in 1998, McDonald decided that something should be done to commemorate his life and achievements. A typeface family turned out to be the perfect answer. According to McDonald, “I had first thought of establishing a scholarship in Sam’s name, but a typeface design soon replaced this idea. Once I decided to design a typeface, however, it became a forgone conclusion that it would be a sans serif—for no other reason than it could carry the name Smart Sans.”

Two typefaces became the inspiration for McDonald’s work. “Like thousands of designers, I’m keen on Matthew Carter’s Helvetica Compressed series. And, when I was younger, I also loved Fred Lambert’s Compacta. I thought there might be a place for a small range that could take over from these old workhorses and in the process bring a fresher look to the genre.”

LAURENTIAN
McDonald began his third typeface family in 2001 when a Canadian magazine, Maclean’s, invited him to join the design team to “renovate” the 96-year-old publication. McDonald would be responsible for designing a new masthead and for the overall typography of the magazine, including the design of a new text typeface family for the magazine’s pages. This was the first time that a Canadian magazine had commissioned a custom typeface.

In asking McDonald to design the typeface, Maclean’s charged him with creating a family that was lively and yet would not interfere with the other elements on the page—or with the content it expressed. Two historic models served as the basis for the design: Garamond and Caslon—although Garamond is clearly the stronger influence. “In the end,” says McDonald, “I created what I like to think is the quintessential Canadian face. It’s inclusive of many points of view and cultural backgrounds.”

A few more pragmatic details also influenced the design. McDonald drew the face with the narrow text columns and small type sizes of magazine composition in mind. “Because of the relatively narrow columns we were limited to a type size of 9.5 points. The narrow columns meant that the face would have to be somewhat condensed, although I didn’t want it to have a pinched appearance.” This prompted McDonald to draw characters somewhat narrow while still maintaining a robust lowercase x-height. Printing and paper were also issues McDonald had to deal with. “The magazine is printed on an inexpensive stock on high-speed web presses. It was almost impossible to get any kind of good contrast between type and paper.” To overcome these less than ideal printing conditions, McDonald gave the letters sturdy serifs and a modest contrast in stroke thickness.

The face, named Laurentian, was launched in Maclean’s July 1, 2002, Canada Day issue. In January of 2003, Laurentian was entered in the New York Type Directors Club annual competition and was one of 13 designs chosen by the international jury.

SLATE
McDonald’s newest design, Slate, also grew out of a custom design project—in fact, two projects. In developing Slate, he melded two typefaces—with very different design objectives—into a single cohesive design. “Both were relatively large families,” he recalls. “The first is a softer, somewhat friendly sans that had to work equally well at display sizes and at very small text sizes. The second family was also a sans serif but this one had to be highly legible because the typeface was going to get a lot of website exposure.” This latter design benefited from a Canadian National Institute for the Blind research project. As part of the project, the institute commissioned McDonald as a typographic expert on typeface legibility.

After finishing both projects McDonald compared the two faces and, although he was pleased with the results, when viewed together he felt that each was somehow incomplete. “I liked the soft, quiet look of the magazine face but was also delighted by my success in drawing a good-legibility design in the second.” Slate is a blending of these two different designs. The result is a humanistic sans with exceptional levels of legibility. Still in the final stages of production, McDonald plans to make the completed family of six weights of Roman and complementary italics available in the first part of 2006.

Although Slate is not quite completed, McDonald is already contemplating his next project. “I think I’d like to push the legibility envelope a little further,” he says. “It’s been a while since a new suite of legibility designs have been made commercially available.” More of the stuff that makes for a Typographer Laureate.