Industrial Democracy at Work – Cover for a National Film Board booklet, Carl Dair, 1946

Carl Dair’s first real job as a typographer was at the newly formed National Film Board (NFB) in Montreal. He was with the NFB for two years.

Throughout the Second World War, and for some time after, the NFB also acted as a public relations agency for the Canadian government, creating film and print material for various government departments such as the Industrial Production Co-operation Board.

The cover for Industrial Democracy at Work shows that Dair had been paying attention to contemporary European and American design. It is modernist, although with a war-time overtone, as evidenced by the use of bold all cap military-style stencil lettering on a rough sign post. Nothing on this cover is secure, or comfortable, the acute angles are reminiscent of fighter planes maneuvering in the sky. Arrows rain down like bombs. It is interesting to note that Dair brings the same sense of urgency to winning the peace that only a few years before had been needed to win the war.