I love Canada! Our Dad (Mom's husband--you get the picture) worked for a Canadian company while we were growing up, and Jaime and I (Jordan) even got to visit Ottawa with him on business trips, so Canada holds a special place in my heart.
Or that might just be because I set my latest novel there.
Whatever.
Today is Canada's national holiday,
CANADA DAY*!! I know most of you probably aren't as excited about this as I am, but . . .
I DON'T CARE! Even if you're American (from the US), it's hard not to love our neighbor to the north. I mean, we haven't had a major fight in 200 years and we share the world's longest border. That's saying something, right?!
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Ooor not. But hey, Canadians, you're doing it awesome!
from Macleans.ca |
So I went in search of some uniquely Canadian fonts. I refused to settle for a font with "Canada" or "Canadian" in the name! This severely limited my options, but it's Canada Day, for heaven's sake!
Let's go all out!
Okay, some of them are a little cliché, but hey, who doesn't love maple leaves?
The fonts:
LMS Oh Canada was designed in 2001 by
London's Letters in a series of country-themed, graphic-filled fonts. It's a rounded serif font filled with maple leaves (really, they're maple leaves). The name is a play on the Canadian national anthem, "O Canada."
Maple Leaf Rag is a serif quasi-calligraphy font, with each letter on a maple leaf background. (The @ sign gives you a plain leaf.) It was designed by
Claude, and shares a name with the old-timey-awesome "
Maple Leaf Rag" by Scott Joplin.
Open Baskerville is a free version of the classic serif font, originally designed in 1757 (seriously!) by John Baskerville (what, no website? Like being dead 200+ years is an excuse not to be on the web.). I know what you're thinking: what the heck is Canadian about this? It's just a boring serif font! To which I say, "Not so!" Designed in 1980, the Canada wordmark features (modified) Baskerville:
That's what they put on their spaceships, baby! (YES. CANADA HAS BEEN TO SPACE.)
(The other official font Canada uses in its signage and paperwork is Helvetica, but, okay, that's a little too common . . . and not free.)
Adanac is probably my favorite of all these. I found it through
Hugh Stimson, via Google. A symbol font designed by
10four Design Group for Canada Day, it features iconic Canadian images from the Canada goose (nope, not "Canadian" goose) to
poutine, from William Shatner to Neil Young, from donuts to
Nanaimo bars, from Sasquatch to
Ogopogo. All of the symbols in the graphic are from Adanac, and its name, of course, is Canada spelled backwards!
The accouterments:
For the colors, I used an
ice blue (HTML/HEX code #85C4C4) and the
OFFICIAL RED of Canada (for screens), Pantone PMS 485, which translates to HTML/HEX code #D81E05.
The scrolls are
Nymphette by Lauren Thompson, which Brooke introduced me to.
Hope you found something to love in this
Wayward Weekend Roundup!
and
Happy Canada Day*!
*Okay, legally, because July 1 falls on a Sunday, Canada Day is tomorrow, but c'mon.
