Texts and Talks

These are mostly articles published in professional journals, shown here in pdf format.
Some retain the original page designs, others have been reset with additional illustrations.

Buslingthorpe
The Long and the Short of it
Medium essay, March 25, 2021

What Was Carl Dair Thinking?
An Analysis of the Cartier Typeface on its Fiftieth Anniversary, and the Shinn Restoration
Video of 22-minute presentation
ATypI Montréal, 2017

Pratt Nova Case Study
Font redesigns help The Globe and Mail adapt to changing news landscape
Web page at the RGD site, March 30, 2015

17 Font Users
What Strange Things Fonts Are, Good For All Manner of Purpose, All Manner of Person
Applied Arts, Sept. 2014

The Look of Sound
Marketing, Products and Technology in the American Record Industry, 1888–1967
Video of 40-minute presentation
TYPO San Francisco, April 11, 2013

Lacunæ
How Type History Disappeared Modernism in the Nineteenth Century and Historicism in the Twentieth
Codex 3, 2013

Engaging Contextuality
There are Many OpenTypeFeatures That Can be Built into a Font, but Contextual Alternates is Something Special
I Love Typography, March 2011

Brutally Compromised
The Tragedy of the Common Store Front Sign
GDC Journal #7, 2011

Verbus and the Big Idea
Alan Fleming Pursues Intellectual Respectability
Unpublished, 2010

Warning Sign
The South East Asian Tsunami
Building Letters 3, Feb. 2005

The Golden Age
Hand Lettering in American Advertising
Typographic 61, Winter 2004

Scriptomania
In the Digital Age, the Script Font Phenomenon Obsolesces the Look of Letterpress
Graphic Exchange, May/June 2004

New Plastic Weapons
Ten Radical 21st Century Type Designs
Graphic Exchange, Jan./Feb. 2004

Punch Cuts
The Modern Page, 1843
Eye 48, Summer 2003

Text Talk
Online Type Forums Emerge as Beacons of Creativity
Graphic Exchange, Sept./Oct. 2003

The Face of Uniformity
Helvetica
Graphic Exchange, July/Aug. 2003

Graphic Propaganda
Cultural Expressions in Time of War
Graphic Exchange, May/June 2003

Industria
The Beat that Won’t be Beaten
Unpublished. Toronto, 2002

Temporal Collapse
A Theory of Type Design
Druk, Fall, 2002

Big Thing
OpenType is an Awesome Font Format
Graphic Exchange, July/August, 2002

Deeper into the Paradigm
The Fluid Interface of Apple’s OS X
Graphic Exchange, May/June 2002

Cruisin’ for Fonts
From Boutiques to Department Stores, Where to Shop for Type on the Internet.
Graphic Exchange, March/April, 2002

Art from Turmoil
Stock Promotions Blitz Metaculture
Graphic Exchange, Jan./Feb. 2002

Chalk and Cheese
Richler and Fontesque Sans
Graphic Exchange, Nov./Dec. 2001

The Perfect Set: 22 Typefaces
Trash the Junk and Get Up to Date with your Type Library.
Graphic Exchange, Sept./Oct. 2001

A Brief History of Fontesque
With the Release of his New Fontesque Sans, Nick Shinn Surveys the Fontesque Years
Druk, Fall, 2001

The Bottom Line
It’s Not Been Easy for Art Directors and Graphic Designers to Maintain a Career Amidst Rapidly Changing Technology and Design Trends
Graphic Exchange, July/Aug. 2001.

Diggin’ it?!
The Buried Treasures of Typography. With Style Guide
Graphic Exchange, May/June 2001

Seeing the Light
A Digital Camera and a Cell Phone. Small Hefty Boxes Crammed with Circuitry. For Both, the Typeface is a Light Sans Serif
Graphic Exchange, Jan./Feb. 2001

For the Masses
Throughout the 20th Century—the Age of Mass Media—Traditional Serifed Typefaces Dominated the Advertisements and Editorial Pages of Mass Circulation Magazines
Druk, Jan. 2001

Neo-Modernism
…is the Tool that Carmen Dunjko (shift) and David Pratt (The Globe and Mail) are Using to Project the Message.
Graphic Exchange, Nov./Dec. 2000

Hip 2B Square
If the Fonts You’re Using Aren’t Post-humanist, They’re Out of Date.
Graphic Exchange, Sept./Oct. 2000