Backed by a lifetime of typographic experience and skill, Canadian designer Rod McDonald spent eight years creating Classic Grotesque, an old style inspired typeface released to the world in New York this month. He worried about how such an old style would be received, but those in the industry were incredibly supportive, including Patrick Griffin of font studio Canada Type, “It’s the biggest thing to ever come out of Canada in terms of type design.”
With the availability of free fonts often created with very little knowledge of typography, the appreciation of a well-designed typeface is at risk of being lost. While type design and the use of type has changed with the advent of the computer, “fonts don’t just appear out of Microsoft Word,” McDonald said. A real typography designer agonizes over the subtleties of each letter. McDonald said, “I’m not happy until it works beside every other character.”
This article describes McDonald's career and the history behind his Classic Grotesque typeface.
With the availability of free fonts often created with very little knowledge of typography, the appreciation of a well-designed typeface is at risk of being lost. While type design and the use of type has changed with the advent of the computer, “fonts don’t just appear out of Microsoft Word,” McDonald said. A real typography designer agonizes over the subtleties of each letter. McDonald said, “I’m not happy until it works beside every other character.”
This article describes McDonald's career and the history behind his Classic Grotesque typeface.
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