This episode was recorded a couple of weeks ago, Live from DesignThinkers Toronto 2024, Canada’s largest graphic design conference.
This episode features an in-person conversation with type aficionado, Carl Shura!
Carl is a strategic visual communications and design professional with experience focused on identity and brand management, wayfinding and exhibits, and type design.
A graduate of the graphic design program at Winnipeg's Red River College, he's also completed the post-grad type design program at The Cooper Union and a summer residency at the SVA TypeLab in NYC. He’s had the pleasure of learning under some of the best type designers in the world.
Carl currently teaches design and production in the SCHOOLOFDESIGN at George Brown College in Toronto. He also runs a newly launched digital font foundry at deptofletters.ca where you'll find his latest available fonts, including 'Circulation Serif' and 'Mullion Heavy,' both winners of a CA Award of Excellence for Type Design in recent years (2022 and 2025).
He is a member of TDC (Type Director’s Club), RGD (Association of Registered Graphic Designers), RHSC (the Royal Heraldry Society of Canada), and is an ATypI Delegate (Association Typographique Internationale) to represent Canada.
In this episode, you’ll hear LOTS, specifically:
The history of the typeface Cooper Black and the ways it’s connected to Carl as a person
The evolution of Carl’s path in design and typography
Carl’s type design workshop at DesignThinkers, specifically about legibility and accessibility
The idea that letterforms are just ‘blobs with defects’
How Carl worked backwards from a few letters to reconstruct an iconic Toronto building sign
How to approach the development of a revival typeface
What it’s like to design a text face vs. a display face, as well as the macro and micro decisions Carl made in the design of his most recent, award-wining typeface
The ways that tools and our physical human bodies shape our understanding of how type should look
Excellent resources and ideas for creating our own typefaces and font files
Finally, you’ll hear Carl’s delightful views on Comic Sans
And much more!
This conversation is part of a guest lecture series in GCM 230 - Typography at The Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Let’s listen in…
About Our Guest:
Carl Shura is a strategic visual communications and design professional with experience focused on identity and brand management, wayfinding and exhibits, and type design.
A graduate of the graphic design program at Winnipeg's Red River College, he's also completed the post-grad type design program at The Cooper Union and a summer residency at the SVA TypeLab in NYC. He’s had the pleasure of learning under some of the best type designers in the world, including Tobias Frere-Jones, Ksenya Samarskaya, Christian Schwartz, Dan Rhatigan, Rod McDonald, Lynne Yun, Erik van Blokland, Maria Doreuli, Tal Leming, Troy Leinster, Hannes Famira, Gen Ramirez, and Zrinka Buljubašić.
Carl currently teaches design and production in the SCHOOLOFDESIGN at George Brown College in Toronto. He also runs a newly launched digital font foundry at deptofletters.ca where you'll find his latest available fonts, including 'Circulation Serif' and 'Mullion Heavy,' both winners of a CA Award of Excellence for Type Design in recent years (2022 and 2025).
He is a member of TDC (Type Director’s Club), RGD (Association of Registered Graphic Designers), RHSC (the Royal Heraldry Society of Canada), and is an ATypI Delegate (Association Typographique Internationale) to represent Canada.
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Music:
Weird Science - John Bartmann licensed under a CC0 1.0 Universal License
Talk Paper Scissors Theme Music: Retro Quirky Upbeat Funk by Lewis Sound Production via Audio Jungle