If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development. - Aristotle

Since the design scene tends to showcase the latest and greatest, it is easy to forget about the early designers who laid the foundation for modern communication design practices. It was these Torontonians who helped define a design discipline and some of Canada’s most recognizable brands.

As communication design evolves, it is important to recognize those who initiated Toronto’s communication design community – today, the third largest in North America. Whether working for the first local design firms, advertising agencies, typesetting/print shops, in-house or as freelancers, there were a select few designers who elevated the profession in the 1950s,’60s and ’70s – this page is dedicated to them.

From Art to Design

Today, art and design are often seen as opposites but there was once no clear delineation between the two. Design was viewed as an artistic embellishment by most clients and early designers had to fight not only to justify their designs and fees, but their very existence.

By the early ’60s, design was evolving and increasingly being recognized as a strategic business tool. This new approach to design was accentuated by European-trained designers immigrating to Canada. Ironically, prior to this period, Canadian designers were forced to find work abroad, in America and Europe, since commercial design work in Canada was sparse.

It was an exciting time, as what was once called “commercial art” changed from a traditional illustrative style to a more iconic approach. Designers began working increasingly in a consulting capacity – with less focus on traditional “graphic art” assembly. Awareness of design was heightened through a number of well-published, highly visible international projects. Local clients became more image conscious and commissioned the best designers to strategically create and manage their visual identities. The idea of a professional design discipline that brought form to verbal and visual content was born.

Though not very well documented, the communication design discipline in Canada can be traced back to the early 1960s, when some of Canada’s first standalone “graphic design firms,” were founded in Toronto. Prior to this, design was handled by the “art departments” of large commercial printing companies. In fact, design was often thrown in for free as part of the production fee. As a result, the value of design and the larger role of the designer in communicating a client’s message went unrecognized.

Many designers would later form their own design consultancies, focusing not just on esthetically pleasing designs, but the strategy to support them. They would elevate the designer’s role from that of an assembly artist, who executed the ideas of others, to a strategic creative partner – welcome in Toronto’s boardrooms. It was these designers who first suggested that “a brand is more than a logo” – a phrase so often used today. By persuading executives to let them go beyond the design of a trademark to develop a broader communication program, they helped define a broader client designer relationship for all of us.

The Future

While design as a profession evolved gradually, technology has revolutionized the industry in only a couple of decades. It was not too long ago that designers transitioned from a desk to a desktop computer. What was once manually crafted by the hands of these pioneers is now produced digitally. This shift in execution has been further magnified by the Internet.

The design community in Toronto has also changed, from a small group where everyone knew each other, to one of the largest design communities in North America. Never before has a career in design been more accessible by the young and the talented. However, in our quest to move forward, we must not forget the design pioneers, their work and their contributions to the industry.

Aristotle’s quote says it all: If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.

- Errol Saldanha

Toronto’s Design Pioneers

CDOT undertook the daunting task of tracking down Toronto’s design pioneers and their work. Identifying who is a pioneer was a task in itself – a shortlist of which few could agree upon. As such, the designers featured in the following pages represent only a cross-section of the many individuals who contributed to the profession. Each of these designers embodies the qualities of a “pioneer”; however, there are many others that are also deserving of the same accolades.

Many of the pieces shown are rare printed pieces that had to be individually collected, scanned and retouched for modern print production. Wherever possible, the work is credited to an individual. As with most design projects, the end result was a collaboration of many – unfortunately, accurate credit information was simply not available.

We did our best to ensure the accuracy of the content provided. However, we apologize for any omissions or errors. By no means is this a comprehensive overview of the people and events that led to such a vast community. This project is a work-in-progress – a step towards documenting the history of commercial art/graphic art/graphic design/communication design in Toronto – a past that is all too often forgotten.

As much as this publication features design work from the past, in its broader capacity, it is a project that challenges the viewer to consider the function and face of design in the present day, and to speculate on how it might evolve in the future.

- Cdot Design Pioneers Team: Katie Babcock, Darryl Bank, Brian Donnelly, Elissa Gallai, Annie Navaleza-Paradis, Errol Saldanha, Randy Van Gerwen, Justin Young

Eric Aldwinckle (1909–1980)

Born in Oxford England, and sent to Canada in 1922, Aldwinckle apprenticed with printers in Toronto in the 1920s. Striking out on his own in 1930, he built a successful design practice through corporate work and illustration, including several covers for Maclean's magazine. Active in Toronto's Arts and Letters Club, he was also a regular part-time instructor at the Ontario College of Art (OCAD). At the beginning of World War II, he registered as a conscientious objector, created several well-known war posters, and worked as a camouflage designer in Halifax. In 1945, Aldwinckle returned to his Toronto design practice, where his celebrity as a returned war artist helped him land high-profile mural commissions with Sunnybrook Hospital and Ontario Hydro. As a mature designer, he continued to work steadily during the 1950s, counting as his clients Imperial Oil, the University of Toronto, Ryerson, York University and the Stratford Festival.

Paul Arthur (1924–2001)

Paul Arthur was a key link between the Canadian design community and intellectual and visual developments from the larger design industry of Europe. After working as the Assistant Editor at Graphis between 1951-1956, Arthur returned to Ottawa at the urging of Alan Jarvis, director of the National Gallery. While there, he produced the Gallery's publications and began work on the new magazine, Canadian Art. He knew how to hire talent: Gerhard Doerrié, Burton Kramer, Stuart Ash, Fritz Gottschalk, Jean Morin, and Ken Rodmell all went through his offices. Late in 1965, his firm opened an office on Adelaide Street in Toronto; a Montreal office was set up in partnership with industrial designers to work on signage, maps and furniture for Expo 67. Later partnerships and business arrangements included his direction of the Discovery Train, a traveling exhibit that crossed Canada to great fanfare in 1978. A founding member of the Society of Environmental Graphic Designers, he was active in wayfinding and architectural signage projects, and a great believer in pictographs and non-verbal communication. Perhaps his highest profile project was the 1981 redesign of the graphic identity for Canada Post.

Stuart Ash (b. 1942)

A graduate of the Ontario College of Art (OCAD) in 1963, Ash drew some of his inspiration from Allan Fleming and Carl Dair's approach and international outlook. As an apprentice to Tony Mann at Cooper & Beatty Ltd., he benefited not only from the practical experience but philosophical discussion. There, he designed the highly stylized and geometric maple leaf as the symbol of Canada's Centennial. It was to prove wildly popular, appearing across the country in a wide variety of applications, from flower beds to civic monuments. Beginning to work with the Swiss-born Fritz Gottschalk in Montreal, Ash suddenly found himself in charge of a major project for the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and an important partnership was born. The firm of Gottschalk+Ash were leading exponents of the remarkable sensitivity and clarity of modernist typography, developing an effective philosophy of design, healthy internal competition to produce the best design, and as a result, developed an admirable client list. As the firm expanded, it developed offices in several cities, and Ash returned to Toronto where his company has recently joined DW+Partners, a network of companies that will continue to actively shape design in Canada.

Ernst Barenscher (b. 1935)

After training in typography in Hildesheim, Germany, Barenscher worked for the gravure publishers H. Osterwald in Hannover along with Gerhard Doerrié. Barenscher came to Canada in 1958 to work at Rolph-Clark-Stone, under Clair Stewart, and at Rous and Mann. Many of the jobs at the time included detailed illustration, and he found such commercial work didn't fully suit him. He spent a year managing the often chaotic but productive design process at Paul Arthur's Toronto firm, and founded his own firm in 1966. Norman Hathaway called on him to work on the graphic identity and manual for the province of Ontario, where he focused in particular on the design of the simplified coat of arms. He has professed a love of sans serif type (especially Helvetica), modular design, and methods of clear visual thinking. This approach, which he worked to establish in Canada throughout the 1960s, gained much more acceptance from after 1970. Between 1978 and his retirement in 2001, Barenscher was an influential teacher at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD).

Carl Brett (1928–2009)

Born in County Cork, Ireland, Brett first studied at the Crawford School of Art. He arrived in Toronto in 1954 to work as a typographer and designer at Vickers and Benson advertising, under art director Stanley Furnival. Brett often drew on the services of TDF Artists Ltd. and of Art Associates, two important full service commercial art companies of the 1950s. Due to Allan Fleming's influential typography for Cooper & Beatty Ltd., Gordon Howarth of rival type house Howarth & Smith was compelled to add creative typography to his list of services as well, and in 1959 Brett found himself with carte blanche to raise their profile. For ten years at Howarth & Smith, Brett set new standards for visual thinking in type, particularly in advertising. Active in the Typographic Designers of Canada, he served as president in 1968, and again in 1974 as interim president, when the Society changed its name to the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada. He left H&S to freelance in 1969, and has since designed a variety of print applications, from books to direct mail, for numerous clients.

Carl Dair (1912–1967)

Born in Welland, Ontario, Dair began his career as an advertising layout artist with the Stratford Beacon Herald in 1930. He settled in Montreal by 1940, holding a variety of jobs including art director at a department store. By 1945, he was named typographic director for the National Film Board of Canada. Dair was a partner in a small design studio (with Henry Eveleigh) between 1947 and 1951, where his clients included the E. B. Eddy paper company and Canadian Business magazine. He left abruptly for Toronto in 1951, where his writing on typographic design became highly influential. A year in Holland in 1956 enabled him to study the hand-punching of metal type at the Enschedé en Zonen foundry, and eventually led to the development of his typeface Cartier, produced in 1966 to mark Canada's Centennial. Through publications such as the series of pamphlets collectively titled A Typographic Quest, and his influential book, Design with Type (1967), Dair became a truly international figure in design history. He passed away in 1967 while flying home from New York, having delivered a final lecture on the past and future of typography.

Gerhard Doerrié (1936–1984)

Born in Celle, Germany, and trained as a typesetter, Doerrié arrived in Montreal in 1960, on the recommendation of Ernst Roch, to aid in the massive redesign of Canadian National then underway at James Valkus's design office. In Toronto, he taught at the Ontario College of Art (OCAD) as one of many German and European-trained designers who were transforming design education in Canada in those years. Between 1964 and 1966, he worked in Paul Arthur's studio in Ottawa, then left to join Massimo Vignelli in New York. He returned to Canada, to teach at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design from 1970 to 1974, and worked freelance. One of the most rigorous of designers working in Canada, he was intense, dedicated, and never satisfied. He returned to Germany shortly before his death in 1984.

Jim Donoahue (b. 1934)

A graduate of the Ontario College of Art (OCAD), Donoahue began his career in the late 1950s with a brief stint at the National Film Board of Canada. In the early 1960s, he became assistant to Allan Fleming at Cooper & Beatty Ltd., and then moved to a design position for TDF Artists Ltd. He also spent some time as art director and copywriter at MacLaren Advertising. In 1969, he returned to C&B assuming the position of Creative Director, where he produced identities for Global Television and the Eaton Centre among others. He was a partner in the design firm Burns, Cooper, Donoahue, Fleming and Company, and in 1978 opened his own design studio. His logos and symbols, posters and brochures are seen across the country: TSN, Investors Group and Vintner's Quality Alliance are just some of the many marks he has created. Donoahue is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts. In 1993, he received the prestigious Les Usherwood Award for lifetime achievement from The Advertising and Design Club of Canada.

Louis Fishauf (b. 1949)

A 1972 graduate of the Ontario College of Art (OCAD), Fishauf began his career with an apprenticeship under Les Usherwood at Typesettra and then worked as an editorial designer and art director at a succession of Canadian publications including Chatelaine, The City (a supplement to the Toronto Star), City Woman, Executive, T.O. magazine and Saturday Night. During thirteen years in magazine publishing, he won numerous awards, including five Gold National Magazine Awards for art direction and cover design. In 1982, he co-founded Reactor Art and Design, where he was Creative Director for 12 years. Principal of Louis Fishauf Design Ltd. since 1994, he divides his time between art direction, design and illustration assignments. He is currently acting Art Director of Toronto Life magazine, consulting Design Director of adbeast inc., and a part-time instructor at the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD). A partial list of Fishauf's many clients over the years includes: Roots Canada, Club Monaco, Adobe Systems, Molson Breweries, Bata Retail, Ashkenaz Festival, Canada Post, Sympatico, adbeast inc, Niagara Vintners and Alias Systems. In 1991, he received the Advertising and Design Club's Les Usherwood Award for "a lifetime of excellence in the field of communication arts."

Allan Fleming (1929–1977)

His early dream was to be an illustrator, but instead he went on to change the face of design in Canada. After a variety of apprenticeships at commercial art firms between 1945 and 1953, Fleming was hired to work for Cooper & Beatty Ltd. in 1957, becoming Vice-President and Director of Creative Services. It was there, in 1959, that Fleming completed his most recognizable design, the iconic CN logo. It is hard to overstate the impact and influence of his highly inventive typographic imagination on the Toronto design community - especially if measured in the sheer number of awards at annual design and typography competitions. He served briefly as the Art Director for Maclean's magazine, and became Director of Creative Services for MacLaren Advertising beginning in 1963. As chief designer for the University of Toronto Press after 1968, he oversaw a highly creative team that produced up to 100 books per year. For the National Film Board of Canada, he also designed the Centennial book project, Canada: A Year of the Land. He was simultaneously involved in a number of different firms in a variety of consulting and design capacities, notably Burns, Cooper, Donoahue, Fleming and Company. Sadly, in 1977, he lost a decade-long struggle with a weak heart at the age of 48.

Georges Haroutiun (b. 1945)

Born and raised in Lebanon, Haroutiun travelled to Copenhagen, Denmark, to attend the school of Graphic Arts. After graduating in 1969, Georges decided to move to Montreal, where he quickly made a name for himself as an art director and designer. In 1977, he moved to Toronto, where he served as an art director for several magazines, including Homemaker's, before starting his own company, M.A.G. Graphics. As a magazine design consultant, he worked on national consumer and trade titles for clients in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and New York. He also launched and art directed Images magazine, a fashion and beauty title distributed through the Shoppers Drug Mart chain. In 1986, Georges founded Applied Arts magazine, which has become the country's preeminent magazine of visual communications, aimed at the graphic design and advertising communities. Today the magazine has a loyal readership of 65,000 and has spawned a series of eagerly anticipated awards annuals. Georges continues to art direct Applied Arts, and in addition, has also taught magazine design and art direction for a number of years at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD).

Hans Kleefeld (b. 1929)

Born and educated in Berlin, Kleefeld served a compositor's apprenticeship before arriving in Canada in 1952. In Toronto, he worked at the large art and illustration agency, TDF Artists Ltd., and also at Walsh Advertising in Windsor, before landing perhaps his most important position with Stewart & Morrison. He designed some of Canada's most recognized symbols and identities in his fourteen years there, including Air Canada, TD Bank, Bank of Montreal, and Inco. He was a part-time teacher at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) for 32 years, and continues to teach in the York/Sheridan program today. His work has always emphasized the designer's role as an interpreter, conveying a clear message; for example, the Bank of Montreal's logo originally was to be green and gold, the color of folding money over top of a gold bar, representing solid assets. (It was changed when focus testing showed that blue was preferred.) A celebrated packaging designer, Kleefeld has worked for several years with Don Watt.

Burton Kramer (b. 1932)

Born in New York, Burton Kramer was educated at The Institute of Design in Chicago, The Royal College of Art in London and The State University of New York. He received an MFA in design from Yale University, and also lived and worked in Chicago, London, and Zurich before coming to Toronto in 1965. After working at Paul Arthur's studio on projects for Expo 67, he founded Kramer Design Associates at the conclusion of the exhibition. He taught Corporate Identity Design at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) for 21 years, and has lectured, published, taught and exhibited internationally. In 1968, he was instrumental in changing the name and the focus of the Typographic Designers of Canada to the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada. Kramer's best-known corporate identity projects include the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Teknion Furniture, National Resource Council Canada, and the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, among many others. Kramer is a recipient of the Order of Ontario (2003), the Province's highest honour for contributions to the cultural life of Ontario. In the same year, he also received an Honorary Doctorate of Design from the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD).

Harold Kurschenska (1931–2003)

Harold Kurschenska began his work as an apprentice compositor at the University of Toronto Press (UTP) in 1957, gained his journeyman's papers, and left the metal and ink of the composing room for the pencil, paper and drawing board of a typographic designer. He was a founding member of the Guild of Hand Printers, and ran a private press under the imprint of the Purple Partridge Press (f. 1956). Kurschenska served as president of the Typographic Designers of Canada in 1965, shortly before it changed its name, and focus, to become the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada. He was actively involved in the design competition and exhibition Typomundus 20, which brought over 10,000 international design entries to Toronto to be judged by thirteen prominent designers. The momentum from this exhibition inspired him to leave UTP in search of greater independence and responsibility, a move that he later acknowledged was a difficult and not altogether successful one. After a variety of short-term jobs, he returned to UTP in 1973, staying there until his retirement in 1996.

Laurie Lewis (b. 1930)

Lewis brought previous experience with offset production from New York to the University of Toronto Press (UTP) in 1963. Her career represents several important transitions in design. Not only does it span the extraordinary thirty-year period of change from metal to digital, roughly 1960 - 1990, but it also overlaps the important final phase of the career of one of the truly formative personalities in Canadian design, Allan Fleming. She provided liaison among designers, typesetters, and printers, often laying out dummies or copy-counting texts to ensure they fit into proper page multiples. In a way, her role was a precursor to the computer itself: she was equipped with an understanding of the many stages in print production, and able to oversee their smooth realization. Some of her major projects included working closely with Carl Dair during the production of his book Design with Type, the visual identity system for the University of Toronto and the Anglican and United Churches' hymn book. She also played an integral role in the design community and worked with regional representatives across Canada to form the national organization of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada. In 1990 she retired from the Press to pursue her other interests in writing and publishing.

Anthony Mann (b. 1927)

Arriving in Toronto in 1962, Mann brought ten years of private practice with him to Canada. Educated at the Manchester College of Art and London Central School of the Arts, Mann replaced Allan Fleming as Creative Director at Cooper & Beatty Ltd. His work there, especially in the self-promotional pieces, shows the same harmony between lively, humorous writing and unpredictable typographic play that marked Fleming's tenure. Mann's interests differed from his predecessor's in his more rigorous commitment to the principles of postwar modernism. There is a freshness and exploratory power to his work, such as the "Fast 1" flyer, that shows how the strength of the International Style reached far beyond the rote applications of formulae of some of its later practitioners. After 1965, Mann went on to partner with Ernst Roch and Rolf Harder in Design Collaborative, and later to a distinguished teaching career at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.

Ken Rodmell (b. 1934)

After graduating from the Ontario College of Art (OCAD) in 1957, Ken worked at Cooper & Beatty Ltd., Canada's high-end advertising typographers, where he was privileged to work for and learn from Allan Fleming. Later, Ken moved on to Imperial Oil, where he designed the Imperial Oil Review. Lured away by Gene Aliman to the newly-formed Canadian magazine, Ken met many of Canada's best editors, writers, photographers and artists. Later, author and broadcaster Peter Gzowski persuaded Ken to move to Toronto Life, where he formed his long-term association with Michael de Pencier. Ken designed and/or art directed Toronto Life, Toronto Life Fashion, Canadian Business, Quill & Quire, among many others. As part of his duties at Key Publishers, Ken also created many logos, and wrote and designed hundreds of promotional pieces. Ken played a pivotal role in the development of the editorial design program at OCAD, where he taught graphic design and magazine design for twenty-six years. He has received the Les Usherwood Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Advertising & Design Club of Canada, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Magazine Awards, The Queen's Jubilee medal and has been elected to the Royal Canadian Academy.

Leslie Smart (1921–1998)

Educated at the Portsmouth School of Art, Smart brought his classical style of British typography to Canada in 1954, where he worked at the Monolino Typesetting Company. He began working as a freelance designer after 1956, and incorporated Leslie Smart and Associates a decade later. A founder of the Typographic Designers of Canada, he recalls being one of a number of "upstart Brits" in the rapidly-changing Toronto of the 1950s and 1960s. His numerous book designs were known for bringing a high degree of restraint and legibility to Canadian publishing. He also wrote a regular column for Canadian Printer and Publisher in the early 1960s. Working for a very large client list, Smart did not repeat himself stylistically, inventing unique typographic and formal solutions to solve a wide range of visual problems.

Clair Stewart (1910-2008)

Born in Kenton, Manitoba, Stewart graduated from the Ontario College of Art (OCAD) in 1932, and worked for Askew Young, an advertising agency in London, England, in the mid-1930s. Stewart returned to Canada in 1937, found work at McLaren and McCaul until the war, and joined printers Rolph-Clark-Stone as art director and designer thereafter. He notes that printers at the time typically did not consider design, typesetting, and illustration as separate, chargeable services. His illustrations were award winners at the popular 1947 exhibition of the Canadian Society of Graphic Artists, which, although primarily devoted to fine printmaking, did much to publicize the commercial arts as well. He formed the graphic design firm of Stewart & Morrison with Ted Morrison in 1960, where he remained a principal for almost twenty-five years.

Ralph Tibbles (b. 1932)

A student at the Ontario College of Art (OCAD) from 1953 to 1956, Tibbles intended to become an illustrator, but was swayed by the teaching of that other illustrator-turned-designer, Allan Fleming. Tibbles joined MacLaren Advertising for four years beginning in 1957, and worked at Maclean's magazine under Gene Aliman and Fleming; he then followed Fleming to MacLaren again in 1965, creating drawings, comprehensive designs, and advertising. In the 1970s, Tibbles had another design stint at Maclean's magazine for editor Peter Gzowski, and then at Saturday Night with editor Robert Fulford. He has left his mark on numerous publications, books and promotional materials.

Leslie Usherwood (1932–1983)

Born in England in 1932, Usherwood studied in Kent, England, and began his career there as a hand lettering artist. He moved to Toronto in 1957 and worked at top Canadian firms until he and David Thomason founded Typsettra Limited in 1968. Typesettra offered hand lettering and studio facilities, producing advertising typography, corporate brochures and annual reports. In total, he created 211 new fonts including Denby and, the especially notable, Caxton. He was also active with Berthold, Letraset and ITC and created typefaces such as Graphis Bold, Statesmen, and Octavia, ITC Leawood and ITC Usherwood. He died unexpectedly in 1983, and since his death a number of his typefaces have been revived by Red Rooster Collection. In his honour, the Advertising and Design Club of Canada created the Les Usherwood award for lifetime achievement in communication arts.

Don Watt (1936-2009)

Watt is widely known for providing innovative retail solutions for clients such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Safeway, Loblaws, Nestle, Kraft and Cott Corporation. Graduating from the Ontario College of Art (OCAD) in industrial design, he worked as an illustrator and at A. V. Roe on the Avro Arrow and the "flying saucer", a top secret project for the U.S. Army. His career moved through 3-D design, animation work in California for Warner Bros., and packaging which is one of his greatest strengths. At Rolph-Clarke-Stone, he was instrumental in moving from accurate renderings of an idea to sketching out rough storyboards, as in animation; this method also involved direct collaboration with clients. Forming his own business, Don Watt + Associates, he soon attracted Nescafé as a client. Perhaps his highest profile work was for Loblaws, where he worked closely with Dave Nichol and others to revolutionize retail and packaging through the development of the 'no name' and President's Choice brands. Leaving Watt International in 2003, he has recently formed DW+Partners, an international network of creative firms.