I’ve been aware of Professor Luc Devroye’s Canadian typography page for a bunch of years now. Devroye is a professor of mathematics and computer science at McGill and Concordia. He also has an abiding interest in typography. This has led him to compile an as comprehensive as possible list of anyone involved in some way in the rarefied world of typography in Canada. I always thought I should write and let him know about myself. Never did though.
Going through my bookmarks yesterday I had another look at it. Oh what the hell. Toot my own horn. I designed type for a decade. Created dozens of original typefaces. Worked on typefaces for two of the biggest names in Canadian graphic design. Taught type design. Haven’t been active for quite some time, but still. Compared to the students who’ve run Helvetica through a filter and called it a typeface, I dare say what I did is certainly worthy of recognition.
So I wrote to him. Within hours my name was on the list, along with some info he culled from this blog. He didn’t get all the details perfect, but so what. My place in the annals of Canadian typography is assured. Fame and fortune await. Things will be named after me. Students will study my work centuries from now. Women will throw themselves at me.
All right. Let’s not get carried away.
(Down towards the bottom. By the T’s.)
I think back to when I was active. The number of people who engaged in type design in Canada in any kind of serious way could probably be counted on one, maybe two hands. Me, Paul Sych, Nick Shinn, Greg Van Alstyne, Ray Larabie, Barbara Klunder, Val Fullard, Jim Rimmer out in Vancouver. ImageClub Graphics in Calgary was certainly a big name. The old school folks like Leslie Usherwood and Carl Dair. Beyond that, I wasn’t aware of very many others. In the intervening decade or two, quite a few others have taken it up. While some of them are little more than the aforementioned ho-hum student projects, it’s great to see the number of people that are tackling typefaces for obscure languages. We take for granted the infinite number of choices available for roman typefaces. But for many users of non-roman alphabets, the choices are either very limited or non-existent.
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