From HHV:

If Words Were Flowers is Harding’s first new music since 2018, a follow up to his critically acclaimed Face Your Fears album. It features songs like Hopeful , where Harding croons with devotion over a classic soul groove, textured with infectious horn playing, background singers and modern psychedelic flourishes. Harding fuels his psychedelic sound with the essence of Soul but isn’t bound by it. Instead, his songs convey an eclectic blend of genres leaping from the many musical lives he has lived from following his evangelical Gospel-singing mother on tour around the country as a child to rapping in Atlanta […].

Designed by Chicago based Alex Coven (with paintings from artist John Zabawa), the record cover is set with a mix of Roman and Italic styles of Suisse Works. The tracking has been adjusted to tighten letters. Inner notes within the gatefold and back cover credits are set in the monospace Pitch. Bajka is used for the record label logotype on the front cover.

Suisse Works is part of the Suisse family, available from Swiss Typefaces.

[More info on Discogs]

Shoreditch High Street, London.

Hackney Road, London.

Brick Lane, London.

Brick Lane, London.

800 Traction Avenue is a building designed by architect John Parkinson in 1939 located in the Arts District of Downtown Los Angeles. This book serves as a historical artifact and time stamp that concretes the remnants of John Parkinson’s contribution to the city of Los Angeles. From the prologue by John Zabawa:

This story began with an assignment to document the current state of the Joannes Brothers building at 800 Traction Avenue located in DTLA’s Arts District. What we walked away with is a greater understanding of how buildings and architecture can shape culture within a neighborhood.

Our approach into typography was to utilize a single weight to be used across the entirety of our book design. We selected Suisse Int’l Regular by Swiss Typefaces as our primary typeface. This typeface is featured on the cover, spine, chapter pages, body copy and image captions.

Creative direction by New Ways
Produced and printed by Equator Books
Photography by Matt Correia
Prologue by John Zabawa
Epilogue by Eva Hagberg
Edited by Hanna Snyder
Historical images courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library

Photography by Jordan Vouga of New Ways

Family Album is the fourth studio album by Lia Ices, released January 29, 2021 via the Natural label. It was written on Moon Mountain in Sonoma, California on the precipice of motherhood. On Family Album, Ices embraced collectivity and collaboration (the record’s title is apt in a multitude of ways). Part of that is allowing a higher level of collaboration than ever before, part is becoming a mother, part is Sonoma’s Edenic Moon Mountain, part is the Wild West freedom inherent in California, part is an awareness of herself, and, most significantly, of growing ever more into that.

The front cover features a prominent use of Ballast (Ben Kiel, XYZ Type) for the album title masthead. Located in the negative space above the word family, hosts a union of smaller secondary typefaces such as Davida, Neue Helvetica and Special Elite. The lowercase y in the word “Family” was altered slightly to feature a more curious ball and fennel design.

Front cover photo by Renee Friedrich
Back cover photo by Christopher Woodcock
Art direction by Aaron Brown
Designed by John Zabawa

[More info on Discogs]

Romance is the debut photo book by Jean Pierrot. It was self-published by Equator in 2018.

“Romance in its core tries to tells my story of remoteness from everyday life that a romance can be. It's my falling in love, embodied and dissected in a book that is no statement but merely a personal album of memories. It demystifies an intimate process we all unknowingly undertake at least once.” – Jean Pierrot in an interview for Russh magazine.

Layout design by Jean Pierrot.
Back cover artwork and Romance lettering by John Zabawa.
All photographs courtesy of Jean Pierrot.

Another Land is the sophomore album by Lucille Furs. Released by the French record label Requiem Pour Un Twister on March 15, 2019.

[More info on Discogs]

The typography featured on the front and back cover is Salvaje Display by type foundry Copper & Brasses. The credits were made on a 1950s Royal Quiet Deluxe Typewriter. A digital font that comes close is Special Elite ().

Heliotrope is the sophomore album by artist Daniel T, released on September 14 2018 by Cascine, an independent record label based in New York and London. Its focus is on alternative pop music.

The typography featured on the front cover is handmade using rub-down Letraset Helvetica Light 36pt. The back cover is designed with all text produced on an early 1950s Royal Quiet Deluxe Typewriter. Artwork and design by John Zabawa.

[More info on Discogs]

Daniel T. is a Los Angeles-based DJ and producer. A longtime record collector and digger, Daniel has become a local authority on bygone music. He hosts regular radio shows on Dublab (Crosseyed & Painless) and NTS (Heat-Wave) while also throwing a weekly party for Heat-Wave in collaboration with Wyatt Potts at former Hollywood strip club, Gold Diggers. Daniel started making music a decade ago as one-half of Cosmic Kids. Alongside Ron Poznansky, he made a name for himself producing heady house and astral dance tunes and releasing originals and remixes with cult labels Throne of Blood, Let’s Play House, and DFA.

After a handful of releases with Cosmic Kids, Daniel pivoted toward his own project as Daniel T. His solo output is inspired by everything that you might find leafing through his record collection: funk, post-punk, new age, and pop of yesteryear (think: Compass Point All-Stars to Yellow Magic Orchestra). The music he releases as Daniel T. is a reflection of his global taste filtered through his Southern California surroundings.

Cover and promotional poster of Do You Compute? featuring a single weight of LL Lettera Mono, designed by Kobi Benezri and available from Lineto. The cover was designed by John Zabawa. From publisher Hat & Beard:

Do You Compute? is a broad survey featuring the very best of computer advertising in the 20th century. From the Atomic Age to the Y2K bug, this volume presents a connoisseur’s selection of graphic gems culled from museums, university archives, and private collections to illustrate the evolution of the computer from its early days as a hulking piece of machinery to its current state as a handheld device.