Distorted Views – booklet, Headliners of Canada, Jim Donoahue, c1974

Most photo-lettering studios offered type modifications – more accurately called photo-distortions – as a standard service. Distorted Views, designed by Creative Director Jim Donoahue for Headliners at Cooper & Beatty, is one of the most technically complete and visually engaging demonstrations of this process.

Typically, when ordering a headline or lettering treatment, an art director would supply a layout or sketch showing a specific visual effect. If no lettering style was provided, the lettering artist selected a style to match the layout. Final artwork was often modified by camera to precisely match height, width, and placement in the layout.

Photo-modification allowed for a wide range of effects – outlines, drop shadows, curves, squash and stretch, slants, and forced perspectives. However, these effects frequently introduced distortions that required skilled hand correction. Artists would refine corners, correct alignment issues, and adjust outlines or contours to restore clarity. For instance, camera-generated outlines often produced soft, rounded corners that needed to be carefully squared with a brush – not difficult work, but slow and unforgiving.

Lettering styles that performed best under these distortions were usually bold and simple. Complex or delicate faces degraded quickly. Heavier alphabets like neo-Spartacus Bold provided enough structure to hold their form through multiple manipulations – one reason they were often used in this kind of promotional material.

Although we haven’t confirmed it, we suspect that this booklet may have been created for Headliners International for distribution across the company’s U.S. franchise network. If so, each franchised dealer would have added their own name and contact information to the back cover.
– Rod McDonald