Allan Robb Fleming (7 May 1929 – 31 December 1977) was a Canadian graphic designer best known for having created the Canadian National Railway logo, designing the best-selling 1967 Centennial book Canada: A Year of the Land/Canada, du temps qui passe, and for revolutionizing the look of scholarly publishing in Canada, particularly at University of Toronto Press.
Born in Toronto, Ontario, he was Vice President and Director of Creative Services at the typographic firm Cooper and Beatty Ltd. when he designed the new CN logo in 1959. In 1962, he became art director for Maclean's magazine. From 1963 to 1968, he was director of creative services at MacLaren Advertising. From 1968 to 1976, he was the chief designer at the University of Toronto Press. He helped co-found, Burns, Cooper, Donoahue, Fleming and Company.
He was the first Fellow of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada and a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.
Early Years
Allan Robb Fleming was the son of Isabella Osborne Fleming, a nurse, and Allan Stevenson Fleming, a clerk with Canadian National Railways. They were both Scottish immigrants. Between 1937 and 1939 AF was hospitalized in Sick Children’s Hospital in Toronto because of an ear infection that required radical surgery and caused the loss of hearing in his left ear. He never forgot the trauma of being thought to be “sick” and as an adult wondered at the naming of the hospital in such a way.
In 1939 AF and his mother travelled to California with his mother as part of his recuperation. Back in Toronto, he attended Western Technical Collegiate from 1943 to 1945 in the commercial art stream. When he was 15, in 1944, his father died of bone cancer. From 1945 until 1947 AF was an illustrator in the mail order-advertising department of the T. Eaton Company, and then until 1951 worked as a layout artist with Art Associates Studio and with the advertising firm Aikin McCracken as an art director.
In 1951 AF married Nancy Barbara Chisholm. AF worked at the advertising firm Art and Design Service with clients such as Ford, Helena Rubenstein, and Kaiser-Frazer until April 1953, at which time he became a freelance designer and went to England for two years. While in England he studied letterforms and the design of type and books, meeting such eminent English designers and design historians as Stanley Morison, Oliver Simon, Herbert Spencer, and Beatrice Warde.
Getting Established
The Flemings returned to Toronto in May 1955, where AF did freelance work with Lewis Parker and taught part-time at the Ontario College of Art. He became head of typography at the college, a post he held until 1961. He also set up an independent graphic design studio in his home in November 1955. In 1956 he hired his student Ken Rodmell as his assistant. AF designed his first book in this period.
In September 1957 AF joined Cooper & Beatty Typesetters as typographic director and designer. There he did a wide variety of designs for art galleries, companies such as the Hudson’s Bay Company, and a cover for Mayfair magazine. He also designed the “Type-o-file,” a box of type specimens arranged by family, which won an award at the Art Directors Club (New York) show. AF’s work was also exhibited at the Type Directors Club of New York.
AF co-organized various exhibitions at C&B, a book by James Reaney for Macmillan (A Suit of Nettles), the American Institute of Graphic Arts annual, Design and Printing for Commerce/50 Advertisements of the Year (1958), and various invitations, covers, and advertisements. In 1958 he also attended a typographic conference in Norwalk, Connecticut, won design awards in Toronto, Montreal, and New York, and delivered the Rous Lecture on Typography at the Ontario College of Art on legibility. The Flemings’ first daughter, Martha, was born in October 1958.
CN Logo
In 1959 the New York industrial design firm James Valkus commissioned AF to design a new logo for Canadian National Railways. The resulting logo, launched in 1960, is still in use today. In this same year AF designed letterhead for Alan Jarvis Associates, the catalogue for the Stratford Festival Art Exhibition, posters for the Toronto Film Society, a photo-documentary fundraising booklet for the United Church of Canada, and “Printing and Social Change” by Marshall McLuhan, which was published in Printing Progress: A Mid-Century Report by the International Association of Printing House Craftsmen. In this year AF also established his first private press, Tortoise Press, whose first book was Eight Poems, by Richard Outram. A feature article on AF by Robert Fulford was published in Canadian Art.
Besides launching the CN symbol in 1960, AF redesigned the Bank of Nova Scotia logo, and worked on projects for Dow Chemical Company, Salada Foods, Jordan Wines, Vickers and Benson, Eaton’s, and Cooper & Beatty. He also attended various art exhibitions and meetings in the United States and designed more books, such as the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Paul-Emile Borduas and the National Gallery of Canada’s Canadian Painters in Watercolour and Folk Painters of the Canadian West. Peter Fleming, Nancy and Allan’s only son, was born in August.
From late June to early September 1960 AF travelled to the UK and Europe on a Canada Council for the Arts grant. There he met among others Jan Tschichold, Karl Gerstner, and Gunter Gerhard Lange of the Berthold type-foundry. He exhibited work at Monotype House Gallery in London at the invitation of Beatrice Warde, gave an address on North American graphic design, and persuaded Ken Rodmell, then living in London, to return to Toronto to work at Cooper & Beatty. Jim Donoahue by then also worked in the creative department at C&B. AF became vice-president and typographic director in charge of creative services at C&B in 1961 and in that position did a variety of design jobs.
Other Projects
1962 was another busy year for AF. He designed a logo for the Montreal Trust Company; letterhead for Hawker Siddeley Canada; graphics and the logo for Toronto’s Malton Airport; all signage, monumental lettering, and the foundation stone for Massey College at the University of Toronto; annual reports and invitations; and attended graphic conferences and exhibited work. In November 1962 AF left C&B in order to become art director at Maclean’s magazine. After a tumultuous nine months there, during which AF led the move to radically alter the look of the magazine, AF was hired as executive art director at MacLaren Advertising Company Ltd. Its clients included General Electric, General Motors, Hockey Night in Canada, Imperial Oil, and Lever Brothers. That same year AF was commissioned to design a new logo for Ontario Hydro, as well as the crest, letterhead, and other related materials for the new Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. Among many other projects as well, AF submitted an unsuccessful design for a new Canadian flag. In April 1963, Allan and Nancy’s third child, Susannah, was born.
AF became vice-president and associate general manager, creative department, at MacLaren in 1965. That year the Ontario Hydro logo was launched also, and AF and Ralph Tibbles designed a new logo for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. AF was involved that year in Liberal Party campaign materials – the Liberals won the election. In 1966 AF became a MacLaren’s director; by then he had sixty-three staff in creative services. That year Lorraine Monk of the National Film Board, Still Photography Division, commissioned AF to design the NFB Centennial book, Canada: A Year of the Land/Canada, du temps qui passe. Among other accomplishments, in this year seven of AF’s projects were chosen for exhibition in Typomondus 20, the first international juried exhibition of typographic design, which was held in Toronto.
1967 saw AF continue to do a wide variety of design projects, including a film for the Hudson’s Bay Company on the occasion of its 300th birthday and a logo and print materials for Dooley’s Restaurant in Toronto. That year AF was awarded the Centennial Medal of Canada and also a gold medal for book design at Graphica ’67 for Canada: A Year of the Land.
UTP Years
In 1968 the first hint of heart trouble occurred. AF was unwell that spring, and left MacLaren Advertising in May, though he continued to be on the board of directors and served as a creative consultant. That month he shifted gears to become chief of design at the University of Toronto Press, an association he maintained until his death in 1977. UTP then was the fourth largest university press in North America, publishing an average of eighty to a hundred books a year.
While revolutionizing the look of scholarly books at UTP, AF also continued to do a wide variety of other design jobs for the Canada Council, , Galanty Productions, Gramercy Holding Ltd, Jordan Wines, Philip and Noah Torno, the Hudson’s Bay Company, and other MacLaren clients. With Ernie Herzig AF set up another small press, Martlet Press, which did a number of books with the NFB and Lorraine Monk as well as others. A UTP Christmas keepsake, The Alphabet Book, by Kettle Point School and Anne and Alex Wyse, won an AIGA award as one of its fifty books of the year. The Martlet Press’s own John Fillion: Thoughts About My Sculpture also won an AIGA award.
Later Work
In 1969 AF designed a symbol and various publications for the Ontario Science Centre, a symbol for the Metropolitan Toronto Separate School Board, the NE Thing Company logo, and a style guide for Canada Post. He also was involved in various exhibitions, such as one at the Art Gallery of Ontario titled Art at the Service of Intention: Graphic Designers at Work, and appeared on Robert Fulford’s TV program, On Books. UTP’s publications, The Economic Atlas of Ontario and Rural Ontario, both won AIGA awards in this year. The following year, AF was appointed to the National Design Council. Also in 1970, he designed a logo for the Metropolitan Educational Television Authority and one for Gray Coach Lines. Besides being involved in various exhibitions, a TV program about letterforms and typography, and posters for the “Stop the Spadina Expressway” movement, AF’s Martlet Press published Twenty-Eight Drawings by Barbara Howard. Howard was a close friend of AF’s and the wife of Richard Outram. In this year another UTP book, Goethe’s Faust, translated by the renowned literary scholar and painter Barker Fairley and illustrated by one of AF’s protégés, Randy Jones, won yet another AIGA award, and The Economic Atlas of Ontario won the World’s Most Beautiful Book prize at the Leipzig International Exhibition of Book Arts.
1971 saw the design by AF of stationery and catalogues for Monk Bretton Books, an antiquarian book dealer specializing in fine press books. With Laurie Lewis, also a designer at UTP, AF designed the United Church of Canada’s new Hymnal. A notable UTP book this year was Sculpture Inuit, done for the Canadian Eskimo Arts Council. In June 1971 AF had a heart attack while in Halifax and then a few months later a paralyzing stroke, forcing him to go on disability leave from UTP. He didn’t stop working, doing such things as stamps for Canada Post with the artist Alma Duncan, first-day covers for the Paul Kane and BC centennial stamps, a Christmas card for UNICEF, and writing and hosting a program for CBC TV entitled “Calligraphy: My Love Affair with the Alphabet.” Quill & Quire, the monthly Canadian book trade magazine, did a feature on AF, and he also made various speeches. By 1972 AF had returned to UTP, but he suffered another heart attack early in the year, and was off work until April.
In 1973 AF joined Burton Kramer Associates as one of two principals. Among other projects they developed the new visual identity for the CBC and for Reed Paper. That year AF also incorporated as Allan R. Fleming Graphic Design Consultants. In August AF experienced a series of angina attacks, which forced him to cut back on various activities. A highlight of the year was being made a fellow of the Ontario College of Art, the first year this honour had been given. Another NFB book, Canada, won the Leipzig World’s Most Beautiful Book prize.
As of January 1974 AF became a director for the industrial design firm Kuypers Adamson Norton Ltd. He also designed labels for Chateau Cartier Wines and launched the CBC symbol with Burton Kramer. St Thomas’s Anglican Church in Toronto commissioned AF to design a logo and related items for its centennial, and AF also did various commissions for Canada Post. AF’s template for The Collected Works of Erasmus, designed in 1974, is still used by UTP for books in this ongoing series. Another AIGA award went to another UTP book, Clarence Tracy’s The Rape Observ’d.
In 1975 AF designed the sesquicentennial symbol for the University of Toronto, as well as stamps commemorating the Olympics and the sculptures of R. Tait MacKenzie. The Rape Observ’d won best of show in the Look of Books competition and was also exhibited at the Type Directors Club in New York.
AF resigned from Burton Kramer Associates Ltd in March of 1976 and joined Burns Cooper Donaohue and Fleming the following month, where among other things he designed packets for MacKenzie Seeds, the Torstar logo, and an album cover for Sylvia Tyson. He redesigned The Financial Post, including the logo. And in March he also left his wife and family and set up house with an editor from UTP, Prudence Tracy. Another highlight of this year was the solo exhibition of AF’s work curated by Alvin Balkind at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The exhibition also travelled to the Alberta College of Art; coming back to Toronto from the opening there, AF suffered a stroke.
Although AF continued to give some lectures and design books such as Photography for the Joy of It for Van Nostrand Reinhold, and as well was commissioned with Ken Rodmell by that publisher to write three textbooks on graphic design, his health was deteriorating, and in late December he had a cardiopulmonary collapse, from which he died on 31 December.
Note
The information above outlines the trajectory of Allan Fleming’s career. Although some hint of his personality and energy come through simply by the sheer quantity and variety of his undertakings, a simple chronology can’t adequately suggest what Brian Donnelly in issue 93 of The Devil’s Artisan calls “his persuasive presentation style and genuine brilliance with words, ” nor can it convey the nurturing and inclusive style that made AF an inspiring colleague and friend and one from whom all who were interested could learn. He not only revolutionized design at UTP, for example; he also revolutionized the relationship between editors, designers, and production and marketing employees, inspiring all with his camaraderie and brilliant innovation. His early death was a tragedy not only for his family and friends but for generations of people who didn’t have the benefit of encountering Allan Robb Fleming.
References
- "A.R. Fleming Collection". National Gallery of Canada.
- "CN Logo 1960". Canadian National Railway.
- "Allan Fleming Graphic designer famous for CN's striking logo". The Globe and Mail. 1978-01-03.
- "Allan Fleming's Many Worlds, edited by Martha Fleming". Devil’s Artisan: A Journal of the Printing Arts 62. 2008.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - "In Allan Fleming's Archive, edited by Martha Fleming". Devil’s Artisan: A Journal of the Printing Arts 63. 2008.
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Collections
Allan Fleming Papers, Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, York University Libraries, Toronto, Ontario
Cooper & Beatty Fonds (MS297), Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto
MacLaren Advertising Fonds (R4467), Archives of Ontario