Karen Cheeseman hand lettered logo for Reactor Art and Design, 1982

Lettering artist Karen Cheeseman recalls working on the Reactor logo

Reactor Art and Design was started in Toronto by Louis Fishauf and Bill Grigsby in 1982. A high energy, fast paced, trend setting design firm for sure. I met with Louis shortly after he and Bill started Reactor to discuss this logo.

Often art directors/designers would have a few very rough roughs to show me as a starting point. Not this time. Many clients that I’ve worked for kind of, sort of, know what they want but can’t describe it. Words like speed, modern, retro, nuclear, movement and action, together with arm waving and using his hands to describe his vision is what I remember. Louis Fishauf was always great to work with because he gave you enough information to proceed without restricting your own creativity, which I think often makes for a better end product.

It worked very well in this case. When I came back with tight rough drawings he said my design was way better than what he had envisioned. High praise indeed! This piece was hand drawn in pencil on paper, rubber cemented to board and inked. I would have started with roughing out the ovals for positioning of letters and visually centering of the lowercase letters. The ovals are 23 degrees.

I could really hear Les Usherwood’s voice in my head guiding me on this job …