Type, the essence of advertising design – Cooper & Beatty, Carl Dair, 1951

This is one of the first Cooper & Beatty ads to use the mark that Carl Dair designed for them in 1951. Dair had just moved from Montreal to Toronto. He bought a piece of land just north of Toronto, on which he built a house and a studio. His new company, Design Workshop Ltd., began with two clients; Cooper & Beatty and The E. B. Eddy Paper Company. Dair was still in Montreal in May of 1951, so it is reasonable to assume this ad was produced later that year. It would be another two years before C&B offered phototypesetting and their advertising was still focused on metal. Dair managed to convey three major steps in the manufacturing of metal type, starting with the drawing of the design, hinted at in the guidelines in the headline ’type’. He then shows a piece of metal type, and finally a type case containing the entire font. All would have been familiar objects to art directors, as would have been the idea that the message is the final objective of every ad. Jack Trevett is listed as the art director for this ad, that does not necessarily mean that he had any real involvement in the design – it just means that he was the president of the company. The careful placement of all the various elements in the ad show Dair’s superb control of space. This ad won an award in the Third Toronto Art Directors Annual show in 1952. – Rod McDonald

Artifact Text

Type, the essence of advertising design

The final objective of every well-designed advertisement is the message itself. There is no substitute for the skill and knowledge of the typesetter in integrating the type message with the design concept to form an harmonious unit.

COOPER & BEATTY, LIMITED

Type Craftsmen at 196 Adelaide Street West, Toronto • Telephone
WAverley 2921
(mark)