Dave Thomason – hand-lettered wordmark, Dave Thomason, c1975

Dave Thomason was born in 1924 in Watford, England. He was only 18 years old when he enlisted in the British army to serve in the Second World War. While stationed in Germany, he met his wife. After returning to England, they began raising a family. In 1957, looking to expand his career, they immigrated to Canada, settling first in Hamilton, Ontario. In 1958 they moved to Toronto where Thomason got a job as a lettering artist at Art & Design Studio (ADS) one of the leading design studios at the time. At ADS he met another very talented lettering artist, and fellow ‘Brit’, Les Usherwood. The two men hit it off and in 1968 they opened Typsettra, an advertising typography shop that, largely under Usherwood’s direction, would became one of the most important typesetting shops in Canada.

Thomason was eight years older than Usherwood and, by all accounts, was not comfortable with the high-pressure world of advertising. Wanting to spend more time with his growing family, in 1975 he sold his share in Typsettra and began to freelance from home, although he continued doing work for Typsettra. Unlike the majority of commercial lettering artists at the time, much of his work shows a strong calligraphic background, not surprising considering that he learned his craft in England. We are still researching Thomason’s work. So far, we’ve confirmed that he created the original circular script Milk logo, the Foodland Ontario logo, and the original Hot Wheels mark. Thomason was also responsible for a large number of the 15 original alphabets released when he and Usherwood launched Typsettra.

In 1996 Thomason suffered a massive heart attack. He recovered, but struggled with short term memory issues. In May of 2001, while vacationing at his cottage on Lake Huron, further heart complications occurred and he died in London, Ontario in June. At a time when Canada had many gifted lettering artists, Dave Thomason was one of the finest. – Rod McDonald