Design with Type, second edition — book, University of Toronto Press, Carl Dair, 1967

Although clearly influenced by the optical experiments of Victor Vasarely, Carl Dair’s 1967 cover for Design with Type remains firmly rooted in typographic form. The repeated black squares suggest both individual pieces of metal type and a case of type, while four rotated squares disrupt the pattern – a subtle nod to modernist tension. He had previously used a variation on the square motif for the 1963–64 Ontario College of Art Prospectus. The overall design is bold yet restrained, and remains one of the more impactful covers ever created for a book on typography.

Folio, the sans serif chosen for the word ‘type’ on the cover, was a less known, but slightly quieter, neo-grotesque than Helvetica or Univers. Dair’s decision to use it over the more widely known faces speaks to his sensibility as a typographer: measured, experimental, and always attuned to how form supports meaning.

Dair insisted that the typesetting only be done by union typesetters, adding to the book’s production cost. To offset the additional cost, he offered to handle the paste-up himself, enlisting help from his daughter Willa – a designer in her own right. His hands-on approach ensured typographic fidelity at every level.

Perhaps the most remarkable element of this edition is Dair’s vertical hyphen. Long frustrated by the ragged effect of end-of-line hyphens in justified settings, Dair designed a vertical hyphen that he had hoped to include in Cartier. Due to character limitations in phototype systems, it was left out. But for Design with Type, the University of Toronto Press agreed to cut a custom Monotype matrix – matched to Bembo – so that his vertical hyphen could be used. This may be the only book ever produced to include it. – Rod McDonald

— Laurie Lewis, a writer and former UTP employee, writes about working with Carl Dair on Design with Type: https://utorontopress.com/blog/2013/03/05/a-memoir-of-carl-dair/

Artifact Text

Text, Inside front cover; about this book

The first edition of Design with Type appeared in 1952 and was immediately acclaimed by professional designers, printers, art directors, and graphic design teachers. In preparing this new edition Mr. Dair has rewritten most of the text to include discussion of current trends in the use of typography, and even to project possible developments which may result from major technological changes taking place in typesetting methods.

This new edition, which retains the basic material of the first, takes the reader through a study of typography that starts with the individual letter and proceeds through the word, the line, and the mass of text. The contrasts possible with type are discussed in detail, along with their applications to the typography of books, advertising, magazines, and information data. New chapters discuss the various contending schools of typography, and are copiously illustrated with the author’s selection of over 150 examples of some of the most imaginative typography being done throughout the world today.

Design with Type differs from all other books on typography in that it discusses type as a design material as well as a means of communication: the premise is that if type is understood in terms of design, the user of type will be better able to work with it to achieve maximum legibility and effectiveness, as well as aesthetic pleasure. Everyone who uses type, everyone who enjoys the appearance of the printed word, will find Design with Type informative and fascinating. It provides, too, an outstanding example of the effectiveness of imaginative and tasteful typographic design.

Text, Inside back cover, (later editions)

Carl Dair (1912–67) was for over thirty-five years a keen student and user of type, both as a working type compositor and as a designer. A prolific writer of articles and monographs on the subject, his work has been reproduced in more than a dozen countries in Europe, Africa and the Far East. Awarded the Medal of the Royal Canadian Academy for distinguished achievements in the Arts in Canada, 1963, Carl Dair also won the Silver Medal, Leipzig International Book Exhibition, 1959, and numerous awards in Art Directors’ Exhibitions in Montreal and Toronto. He was on the jury of Typomundus 20, was an Honorary Fellow of the Typographic Designers of Canada and Member of the Board of Directors of the International Center for the Typographic Arts, New York. This edition of Design with Type has won several major design awards: it was one of the “Fifty Books of the Year 1967” selected by the American Institute of Graphic Arts; it was chosen for exhibit at the 1968 Association of American University Presses Book Show and at the New York Type Directors Club Show TDC XIII; and it won the Silver Eagle at the Nice Book Fair 1969, The Graphic Designers of Canada Certificate of Excellence 1968, and a Graphic 68 Award of Merit. Mr. Dair taught typography and design in Toronto, Montreal and Jamaica.