Goluska font is the work of Rod McDonald, a Canadian typographer with over 40 years of experience. His creations include Cartier Book, his interpretation of Canada’s first typeface – the Laurentian family.

Rod McDonald is known for digitizing the Cartier font, hand-drawn by faimous designer Carl Dair. Carl Dair was a type designer, Canadian teacher, and author, who wrote the book “Design with Type” which presents the 7 principles of letter design: size, proportion, structure, texture, color and orientation. The book “Design with Type” was the first Canadian book to receive the Book of the Year award from the American Institute of Graphic Arts in 2000.

When considering the Goluska Typeface, I think of the friendship between Rod McDonald and Glenn Goluska, because this typeface was created by Rod, as a tribute to his friend Glenn Goluska, based on Dwiggin’s Elektra design, one of Glenn’s favorite fonts.

This journey extends from design to wood type, through George A. Walker’s initiative.

Petrescu Press was commissioned by Mr. George A. Walker – a wonderful professional, unrivaled in the art of the book, with the distinction of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in recognition of his achievements in Canadian Book Arts.

George Walker received the Bronze Medal in 2008 at the Independent Publisher Book Awards for the book “Images from the Neocerebellum”; He has received Best Original Prints Prize in Toronto 5 times; George Walker reaches the finals of the annual Book Design competition organized by the Stiftung Buchkunst, with the book “The Mysterious Death of Tom Thomson” – a copy of this book is in the Museum für Druckkunst in Leipzig. All of George Walker’s books are limited edition, with original engravings, composed and printed letterpress. George Walker wrote: The Woodcut Artist’s Handbook.

A few words about Goluska’s style

It is a “serif” typeface with a melange between an organic line (round characters) and a horizontal line, straightforward (ascender – ear, arm and descender – tail, bracket). William Addison Dwiggins described the design as a “modern roman type letter” with ‘personality’.

Petrescu Press collaborated with Rod McDonald for the wood type manufacturing of the Goluska typeface to determine the typeface-style line to be cut into wood. Thus, after designing the cutting program, a first series of wood type upper, lower case and numbers, 8 line, 0.918 American type height, resulted, ready to be sent to Mr. George A. Walker in Toronto, Canada.

Testimonials

“Tudor and Delia are treasures in the letterpress community. Their care and attention to detail, in all their products, is evidence of their artisanal approach to everything they create. You won’t be disappointed with their work and if you are like me, will be a repeat customer.” George A. Walker – Book Artist.