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

Dave Thomason was a highly respected Toronto lettering artist who was one of the few ‘on par’ with Al Elliott. They were roughly the same age and throughout the 1950s both had worked at Art & Design Studio.

Elliott left ADS in 1963 to join Headliners, Thomason stayed and was soon joined by another talented letterer, Les Usherwood. In 1968 Thomason and Usherwood left to form the advertising typography shop Typsettra. Thomason sold his shares in Typsettra in 1975 and seemed to have semi-retired although we know he continued doing freelance lettering for Typsettra.

Thomason died in 2001. We have many original pieces of lettering that we have identified as Thomason’s as well as many that we are uncertain about. At this time we do not have any information about his life, when and where he was born, or where he trained. Over time we hope to answer these questions, and hopefully a few more.