Two advertisements in the 1964 Toronto Art Directors Annual, 1964

These two ads, coincidentally placed side-by-side, appear to epitomise the enormous cultural gulf that opened up in the 1960s. The Pirrografics ad uses a mechanical ‘slab-sided gothic’, as these kinds of sans serifs were often called, and looks to be the embodiment of the new ‘brutalism’ taking hold at that time, while the more organic lettering of the word ‘love’ in the Loomis & Toles ad attempts to reflect the growing counter-culture movement of the 1960s. The carefully graduated weights in each word and line of the Pirrografics ad show that someone had invested a great deal of care, and love, in creating that lettering. On the other hand Loomis & Toles, who were one of the major art supply companies in Toronto, appear to have employed a corporate designer to produce the psychedelic peace and love movement lettering.