Carl Dair

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Harris Carleton Dair (February 14, 1912 – September 28, 1967), known as Carl Dair, was a Canadian graphic designer, teacher, type designer, and author.[1][2] Primarily a self-taught designer, Dair was internationally known and developed visual design principles for typography which are still in use today.[3][4]

Early life[edit]

Dair was born in Crowland Township in Welland, Ontario, in 1912, to William Albert Dair and Bertha Minnie Dair (née White).[5][6] Dair's first job as an 18-year-old was creating advertising and layouts for the Stratford Beacon-Herald.[3]

Career[edit]

Dair formed a partnership with Henry Eveleigh and set-up the Dair-Eveleigh Studio from 1947-51 in Montréal, Quebec. He worked principally as a freelance designer on a variety of jobs from department store art director to the typographic director for the National Film Board of Canada (1945).[3] Dair lectured on typography at the Ontario College of Art between 1959 and 1962, as well as teaching at the Jamaica School of Arts and Crafts for two years.[7]

Dair published a book, Design with Type, in 1952; it was revised and republished in 1967. In it he described principals of design using primarily typefaces; in particular, he outlined visual principles of harmony and contrast codifying seven kinds of typographic contrast: size, weight, structure, form, texture, colour, and direction. "Contrast is the opposite of concord; it is based on a unity of differences."[8] Design with Type became the first Canadian book to receive the Book of the Year Award from the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA).[9] It was republished by the University of Toronto Press (First Edition) in 2000.

In 1956 and 1957, after receiving the RSC fellowship, Dair studied type design and manufacture in the Netherlands.[3] He studied metal type and hand-punching at Enschedé Foundry in Haarlem, Netherlands, where he created a silent film called Gravers and Files documenting the craft of punchcutter P. H. Radisch.[10]

Dair's experiences at Enschedé prepared Dair for the creation of a typeface called Cartier,[10][11] which was commissioned and released for Canada's 1967 centenary celebrations, to be an identifiable Canadian typeface.[12] The original design was based on hand-lettering and had some weaknesses as a typeface, which were corrected by Rod McDonald for Monotype Imaging and released in 2000.[13][14] Cartier is now widely used in Canada.[15]

In 1959, Dair was awarded the silver medal at the Internationale Buchkunst-Austellung in Leipzig, East Germany. In 1962, The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts awarded him its Arts Medal. In 1967, he became a fellow in the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC).

Dair died on a flight from New York City to Toronto on September 28, 1967.[3] The Faculty of Fine Arts at York University honors Dair's contribution to design in Canada with the Carl Dair Memorial Scholarship.[16] A collection of Dair's work can be seen on the Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art website.

Typefaces[edit]

Typefaces Designed by Carl Dair:

Publications[edit]

  • Dair, C. Design with type. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, (1952; 2nd ed 1967)
  • A Typographic Quest, 6 pamphlets published by Westvaco Papers in the 1960s
  • Dair, C. (Director). (1957). Gravers and Files [Film].

References[edit]

  1. ^ Martha Fleming; Allan Fleming; Robert Tombs, Devin Crawley, Donna Braggins, Carol Payne, Brian Donnelly (15 January 2018). The Fleming Files: Allan Fleming's Life & Works. The Porcupine's Quill. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-88984-955-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ [1] Berry, J. (2003, July 28). Dot-font: Seven Principles of Typographic Contrast. Via CreativePro.com
  3. ^ a b c d e Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC). (2007, November 17). Gdc fellows: 1960 recipients. Retrieved from http://www.gdc.net/about/fellows/articles67.php
  4. ^ Bibliographical Society of America (December 1994). The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. The Society. p. 502.
  5. ^ "Harris Carleton Dair, 14 Feb 1912"; Ontario Births, 1869-1912, Archives of Ontario
  6. ^ Bibliographical Society of Canada (1965). Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada: Cahiers de la Société Bibliographique Du Canada. Bibliographical Society of Canada. pp. 23–25.
  7. ^ Carl Dair Fonds. Massey College, Toronto (MS Word doc). Retrieved from "Carl Dair Fonds". Archived from the original on April 5, 2012.
  8. ^ Dair, C. Design with type. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967
  9. ^ University of Toronto Press (Retrieved August 3, 2011) "Timeline." http://www.utpress.utoronto.ca/noflash.html
  10. ^ a b The Devil's Artisan. (2008). A rogue's gallery of the Canadian book and printing arts: carl dair. Retrieved from http://devilsartisan.porcupinesquill.ca/rogues_gallery_dair.html
  11. ^ Paul Shaw (2017). Revival Type: Digital Typefaces Inspired by the Past. Yale University Press. p. 173. ISBN 978-0-300-21929-6.
  12. ^ "Carl Dair, the man who gave Canada its own typeface". Our Windsor, Sep 27, 2015 by Katie Daubs
  13. ^ "Rod McDonald, Canada's Typographer Laureate". Archived from the original on July 19, 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  14. ^ Fonts.com (2011). Cartier. Retrieved from http://www.fonts.com/findfonts/hiddengems/cartier.htm Archived 2011-08-14 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ Lewis, Laurie (2011). "Carl Dair". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on December 29, 2011.
  16. ^ "Carl Dair Memorial Scholarship". Retrieved April 28, 2020.
  17. ^ Jaspert, W. Pincus, W. Turner Berry and A.F. Johnson. The Encyclopedia of Type Faces. Blandford Press Lts.: 1953, 1983, ISBN 0-7137-1347-X, p. 37
  18. ^ "Carl Dair Pro". MyFont. 1999-02-22. Retrieved 2011-10-20.

External links[edit]

Examples of work[edit]

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