An album from the legendary Wackie’s record label based in the Bronx, active in the late 1970s and 1980s. Helmed by Lloyd Barnes, it became an important place for roots reggae and dub productions with many artists coming from Jamaica to get the special Bullwackie treatment.

The album’s typography is constructed using dry-transfer lettering, mainly Letraset. It’s interesting to see an X-Acto knife reproduced on the cover. It’s shown next to a microphone, a reel-to-reel tape, and what looks like a ruler. Perhaps, a nod to the way the cover is made? The bulk of Wackie’s album covers were very much in the pared down, lo-fi style, appropriate to the sound of the label itself.

The Presenting line is set in Tintoretto. the rest of the type on the front is set in Raphael, and Eurostile.

Note that the images shown are from the reissue from 2005, which scanned the original covers and reproduced them. Early 2000s saw a big interest in the Wackie’s label and many reissues were published in Germany by Basic Channel at that time.

The album was designed Leslie A. Moore, who ran LAM Graphics International design studio, specializing in album covers. You can see more of Leslie’s work at discogs.com

Back of the album is dominated by Bodoni Bold, Times New Roman, and Eurostile. The credits of musicians on the back are curious in that they use the caps from Bodoni, and lowercase from Times New Roman. This certainly is easy to do with dry-transfer lettering.

Original back cover with the distribution credits to Wackie’s and the year at bottom right

XTC’s Go 2 is one of the most unique album cover designs; certainly in the meta (self-referential) and typographic sense. It was handled by the legendary album design studio Hipgnosis who are credited for having a hand in the design of over 800 album covers.

The design uses typewritten text for every element of the overall package of the album. The text describes the design and the thinking behind what record covers do. It reads (in part):

This is a RECORD COVER. This writing is the DESIGN upon the record cover. The DESIGN is to help SELL the record. We hope to draw your attention to it and encourage you to pick it up. When you have done that maybe you’ll be persuaded to listen to the music – in this case XIC’s Go 2 album. Then we want you to BUY it. The idea being that the more of you that buy this record the more money Virgin Records, the manager Ian Reid and XTC themselves will make. To the aforementioned this is known as PLEASURE. A good cover DESIGN is one that attracts more buyers and gives more pleasure. This writing is trying to pull you in much like an eye-catching picture. It is designed to get you to READ IT. This is called luring the VICTIM, and you are the VICTIM. But if you have a free mind you should STOP READING NOW! because all we are attempting to do is to get you to read on.

The typewriter typeface used here, Elite, was identified in Rick Poynor’s article “This is a column” for Eye magazine. A very good piece, by the way, on the recursive approach to design.

Back cover of the vinyl release

The same typographic treatment extends to the vinyl labels. The text on side one reads:

This is a LABEL. This writing is known as the LABEL COPY. It is put on the label so you know WHICH Bide is WHICH. It's also put on for COPYRIGHT reasons. Normally it is made as LEGIBLE as possible, but in this case we are trying to maintain a DESIGN CONTINUITY in the packaging and advertising material. This is often regarded as an efficient way to PROMOTE the IMAGE of the band and hence INCREASE album sales. […] This record is STEREO but the label is mono.

The second side of the vinyl label. The text here reads:

This is the LABEL on the OTHER side. This writing is known as the LABEL COPY, but we've explained all that before. Virgin refused us a label entirely of our own either because they thought it too INDULGENT of us or else they were SORE at having no logos anywhere on the cover. We have, therefore, covered it up as much as possible.

The design was also adapted to the cassette release as well. Strangely, the text here was set in Univers.

The same was adapted to the eventual CD release

Back of the CD

Nice pairing of ITC Pioneer and Balloon typefaces on this cover by Oliver Munday for Sam Lipsyte’s Hark novel.

Publisher Granta describes the book this way:

In an America convulsed by political upheaval, cultural discord, environmental collapse and spiritual confusion, many folks are searching for peace, salvation, and – perhaps most immediately – just a little damn focus. Enter Hark Morner, an unwitting guru whose technique of “Mental Archery” – a combination of mindfulness, mythology, fake history, yoga, and, well, archery – is set to captivate the masses and raise him to near-messiah status. It’s a role he never asked for, and one he is woefully underprepared to take on. But his inner-circle of modern pilgrims have other plans, as do some suddenly powerful fringe players, including a renegade Ivy League ethicist, a gentle Swedish kidnapper, a crossbow-hunting veteran of jungle drug wars, a social media tycoon with an empire on the skids, and a mysteriously influential (but undeniably slimy) catfish.

2019 trade paperback edition

Color variant for the 2020 paperback edition

Oliver Munday, the prolific book cover designer, uses Keep on Truckin NF, which is a digital revival of Baby Fat Black and Buxom. The smaller text is hand-rendered.

The publisher describes the book:

The New York Times best-selling author of The Nix is back with a poignant and witty novel about a modern marriage and the bonds that keep people together. Mining the absurdities of contemporary society, Wellness reimagines the love story with a healthy dose of insight, irony, and heart.

The design here is a clever nod to the previous book by Nathan Hill that Oliver had also designed, The Nix. Both use bright colors, handwritten lettering, a halftone image, and blocky/dimensional center-aligned typefaces.

A playful cover designed by Joyce Hopkins for a collection of stories compiled by Aidan Chambers, aimed at young adults.

Joyce was a long-time designer with Harper & Row book publishers. She was also one of the organizers of the seminal exhibition Black Artists in Graphic Communication, held at Composing Room’s “Gallery 303” in 1970. The show included 49 Black designers working in graphic design at the time. You can read more about the show in a contemporary article by Dr. Cheryl D. Miller in the Communication Arts magazine. Based on the documentation of the show, the Lubalin Center has been gathering an extensive collection of material that represents artifacts and artists included in that show.

Cover for the Desliga O Mundo album by the Brazilian funk band Painel De Controle (“Control Panel”), designed by Ney Tavora in 1978. The cover prominently uses the Ginger Snap typeface, popular with the album cover designers of the 1970s.

Nice use of the Ben Day dot gradient inside the band’s name.

[More info on Discogs]

From the back cover:

An interpretation of Egypt’s relations with her fellow Arab states during the era of Gamal ’Abd al-Nasir, Mr. Kerr’s study begins in 1958. This momentous year saw the creation of the UNited Arab Republic, The Lebanese civil war, and the Iraqi revolution.

The cover uses an interesting and contrasting combination of Neil Bold and Columbus typefaces.

The design is by Ronald Clyne, a prolific album and book jacket designer of the 1960/70s. He often used texture in his work, similar to the one used on the right half of this cover.

An interesting fact about this book is that the son of its author, Malcolm H. Kerr, is the former NBA player and current coach Steve Kerr. Steve was born in Beirut, Lebanon, where his father was an academic specializing in the Middle East.

This is the third edition of this book published in 1971. The first edition was published in 1965, titled “The Arab Cold War, 1958-1964”. Information and additional details on the book can be found on Goodreads.

The first edition of Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell, published by Secker & Warburg in 1938. The designer is unknown (small initial K in the bottom left corner of the cover). The book jacket uses Motor, the spine uses the undecorated variant of the same face, called Dynamo. The imperfections in the type on the cover could be because it was possibly redrawn for the mechanical.

“Despite a modest print run of 1500 copies, “Homage to Catalonia ran so counter to prevailing opinion that in its first 12 years, it sold only 600 copies; yet it was perhaps the most rigorously clear view of the Spanish reality in the English language” (New York Times).

Orwell Foundation describes the book this way:

Orwell went to Spain in late 1936, and enlisted to fight for the POUM, an anti-Stalinist communist party. While there, he was shot in the neck and forced to flee the country after the POUM were declared an illegal organisation. Orwell’s experiences in Spain turned him decisively against Soviet communism, and the book’s criticisms of the Communists proved controversial at home – his usual publisher, Gollancz, would not print the book, which appeared in 1938 from Secker & Warburg

A 1973 poster for the reggae classic film The Harder They Come, starring Jimmy Cliff. The title treatment is set in Zipper, a Letraset classic. The curved type with Jimmy Cliff’s name looks to be photographically adjusted to better conform to the curve. Note the slight trapezoidal tapering towards the bottom of the letters. Compare the C, M, and Y glyphs in the name and title. The top quote on the poster is set in Helvetica and Bookman Bold Italic Swash, with the credit line set in Stymie. The quote uses hanging punctuation well! Trade Gothic shows up in small print at the bottom. The film critic quotes are typed on a typewriter. The border is a scotch rule (thick-thin-thick style) that could have been made using a dry-transfer process (not the slight misalignment where the curved corner meets the straight line. Letraset catalogs don’t show this style of border.

This poster is the “Style B” of the poster and differs significantly from the other promotional posters for the film, which are done in the blaxploitation style. The bottom left corner of the poster is meant for the placement of the details of the local theater screening the film.

Detail of the main title’s type treatment. You can make out the faint sun shape made out of Ben Day dots (or done using a dry transfer tone) in the background. Trade Gothic is used for the “Roger Corman presents...” credit line.

Advertisement for Smirnoff vodka, published in the October 14, 1971 issue of Jet magazine. The headline is set in ITC Bernase with the small print set in Optima Italic.

Advertisement for Johnnie Walker Red Label whiskey, published in the October 28, 1971 issue of Jet magazine. The headline and main copy are set in Trooper Roman with the small print set in Trade Gothic.

Poster for Orson Welles’ 1973 docudrama, F for Fake, designed by Donn Trethewey in 1977. Donn’s first name is sometimes listed online as Dom, or Don, due to the fact that the style of font used as his signature/logo on posters he designed has the fully arched n, and at low resolution it can read like an m. The true first name is hard to confirm, but most likely is Donn.

Wikipedia describes the film as:

Initially released in 1974, it focuses on Elmyr de Hory's recounting of his career as a professional art forger; de Hory's story serves as the backdrop for a meandering investigation of the natures of authorship and authenticity, as well as the basis of the value of art. Far from serving as a traditional documentary on de Hory, the film also incorporates Welles's companion Oja Kodar, hoax biographer Clifford Irving and Orson Welles as himself. F for Fake is sometimes considered an example of a film essay.

The title is set in tightly kerned and optically compressed ITC American Typewriter. The rest of the type is set using the Thin style of Harry. A nice example of well-executed pairing of contrasting typefaces.

This movie tie-in paperback edition of Philip Friedman’s novel-turned-screenplay Rage was published by Warner Paperback Library in February 1973.

The uncredited cover design prominently uses Filmsense as the central element (possibly modified by the addition of the side shade).

The image in the center comes from the poster for the film, sans the title treatment.

From the back cover:

It was the Pentagon’s ultra-secret weapon. Silent. Tasteless. Completely invisible and undetectable—until it was much too late. Then it could take as little as a minute, or as much as a week, before all vital functions disintegrated, and you painfully expired. It was called Nerve Gas. And three hundred pounds of it had been accidentally dumped over Wyoming…

See also Paul Bacon’s first-edition book jacket featuring Americana.

The dust jacket for Atheneum Books’ first edition of Philip Friedman’s Rage was designed by Paul Bacon in 1972. It uses Richard Isbell's Americana typeface with Helvetica.

See also the movie tie-in paperback edition featuring Filmsense.

The synopsis on the back is set in Times New Roman.

Prolific book jacket designer Barbara de Wilde’s design of Brian Evenson’s first published collection of stories. The main title and author are set in LL Albroni, a revival of Alexander Brodovitch’s Albro typeface, done by Nico Schweizer and published by Lineto. The small line “Stories and a Novella” is set in Helvetica.

Lovely use of Eightway, designed by Milton Glaser, for an album, also designed by Milton Glaser. The design is very much in keeping with the style that Milton started to employ in the 1970s—his own twist on Pop Art.

More information on the album itself can be found on Discogs.

Album cover of Adam Harasiewicz’s performance of Frédéric Chopin’s Etudes, Op.10 And Op.25, released by Philips Records under its World Series collection in 1969. Published in the USA via Mercury Records.

The display text is set in L&C Hairline, recognizable by the thin stroke weight and its distinct comma shape. The letter C, in Chopin, looks like it was modified from an O as the aperture in L&C Hairline is not as small as that. L&C Hairline did contain many alternates, but none for capital C. It's a really tiny detail but one that makes the word Frédérick align nicely with the ends of the C. Very nice example of how tightly this face was able to set. The World Series logotype uses a version of the Binner typeface, see the dedicated post.

A sound recording of this album is accessible through Archive.org. The published date there is listed as 1961 but that doesn’t seem right since the Philips Records’ numbering in that range (9115) are all from 1969. Plus, that would be far too early for L&H Hairline which only came out circa 1965/66.

A rare sighting of Square Gothic in use on the front of this album from 1954. The cover is designed by Mario Scheichenbauer, who was active as an album designer in the mid to late 1950s. Apparently, by the 1970s he was also an interior designer. He is probably better known for his design of the Yeti rocking chair made for the Elam furniture company in 1968.

The back cover uses the go-to album cover typefaces popular in the ’50s: Tempo, Bodoni, along with Square Gothic, plus a small bit of Copperplate Gothic.

A high-resolution cover as well as the audio recording can be found at archive.org. More details about this album are over on Discogs website.

A rare contemporary sighting of the Abbey Scroll typeface. Looks like the typeface was set using scans/images of the face rather than being typeset as there is currently no digital version of this face available.

The cover was art directed by the musician behind the band Drugdealer, Michael Collins, together with designer Teddy Rollins.

More on this release on the label’s website: Mexican Summer

A striking abstract cover designed by Ronald Clyne for Folkways Records’ release of Sound Patterns, featuring Folio Medium Extended. First issued in 1953 with catalog number FPX 130 and a cover set in caps from Lydian, the depicted cover is for a later release. There is no date stated (apart from the original 1953 release), but the new catalog number, FX 6130, is mentioned in an issue of HiFi & Music Review from September 1958. If this indeed is an announcement of the release with Clyne’s design, his use of this typeface is a very early one: according to an index card by the Bauer type foundry, Folio Medium Extended was first cast in 1959, and advertised in 1960.

[More info on Discogs]