Polish poster for John Carpenter’s Christine, the 1983 horror film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name. Designer Jakub Erol drew some fabulous fangs for Christine (the jealous, possessive car kills by means other than biting, but who cares?).

The typography is interesting, too. To understand why University Roman Bold (Letraset, 1977) was chosen, it pays off to take a look at the wordmark that was used on the original US poster (shown below) and also in the movie itself, see Nick’s post about the titles.

Erol apparently aimed to approximate this piece of lettering, and University Roman ticks several boxes: it’s serifed and has about the right weight. Its C is round and wide, with a serif at the top but none at the bottom. R has a low waistline. And although the S doesn’t descend, it comes pretty close with its curling bottom part. The only crucial detail that the font didn’t offer is the round “uncial” E. No problem for a skilled Letraset wrangler: the designer simply repurposed a C and added the middle bar from an E – voilà!

Detail from the US one sheet advance poster for Christine. The title is custom drawn, in red serifed caps with a black outline and a heavier white contour. The descending swash forms for C, S, E feature pointed terminals. Other text is set in squeezed Albertus. The poster designer and lettering artist is unknown to me.

The other text was composed from rubdown type as well: “horror amerykański” is in a Letragraphica original, Colin Brignall’s Premier Shaded. And the line below the title in Times New Roman exhibit the typical signs of small-scale transfer lettering: unruly baseline alignment and occassionally blemished glyphs (see the G in “Gordon”)

Erol didn’t vertically center the bar in E, as in the movie logo. He deliberately positioned it higher, so that it aligns with the bar in University Roman’s H.

Poster for a 1984 production of Janusz Odrowąż’s Diabły Warszawskie (Devils of Warsaw) at Teatr na Targówku in Warsaw, Poland.

The poster by Jakub Erol features Jackson accompanied by some tightly-spaced Folio, plus another unidentified sans. A few of the diacritics on the poster are implemented with some inventive simplicity.

Polish poster for the award winning psychological drama Skazany (“Convicted”, German: Der Verurteilte, 1976) directed by Andrzej Trzos-Rastawiecki. See also the Czech version by Karel Vaca.

In Jakub Erol’s striking design, a giant cracking boxing glove is framed by type in two Mecanorma classics, the top-heavy Jackson and the Escheresque Zelek. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much Zelek in one place!

Zelek (1972) was designed by Bronisław Zelek, who, like Erol, studied under Henryk Tomaszewski (1914–2005) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. When Erol graduated in 1968, Zelek worked as assistant to Prof. Tomaszewski. Both Erol (born 1941) and Zelek (born 1935) sadly passed away in February 2018.

Copy from the collection of posters donated to the permanent collection of the Herb Lubalin Study Center in 2004 by Marek Bartelik Jamie Kleinbaum

Discovered at Letterboxd.