Stage Fright is the third studio album by The Band. Released in 1970, it takes its name from the title song written by guitarist Robbie Robertson (1943–2023). From Wikipedia:

The Band drummer Levon Helm has written that the song is about “the terror of performing.” Others believe that the lyrics refer to Bob Dylan, who had stopped touring live during the late 1960s.

The typeface that designer Bob Cato picked for the title is Element, a simplified textura designed by Max Bittrof and released by the Bauer foundry in 1933, the first year of the Nazi regime in Germany. Was this a conscious choice to express the idea of “fright” typographically?

The specific font in use likely is Seidelburg Heavy, which is the name Photo-Lettering chose for their adaptation of Element’s halbfett style, made sometime before 1960. I’m not aware of a place named Seidelburg. In (Southern) German, a Seidel is a beer mug. And in fact there was a restaurant in Manhattan named Old Seidelburg, serving “the best beer in town in ice cold steins”. Opened by Conrad Metterle in 1933, it was located on 626 Third Avenue, just four blocks south from Photo-Lettering’s studio.

“The Band” is in caps from Cooper Americana which sits between the lighter Cooper Old Style and the bolder Cooper Black. The names of the band members and songs as well as the credits are set in Pabst Extra Bold, Linotype’s follower of Cooper Black.

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Detail

Detail

Detail

Album cover – U.S. Stereo version

The novel triangular features of Novel Gothic turn up in another Columbia album, 1965’s Turn! Turn! Turn! by the Byrds.

The title, with rounded lowercase r might be hand-drawn, with a triangularized exclamation mark that seems to have been inspired by the Novel Gothic below. The song names are set in Century Schoolbook Bold. Liner notes are printed on the back of the cardboard sleeve in Akzidenz-Grotesk.

Ancillary text uses the record label’s typical house style and typefaces, which vary in some cases by market. For example, the record labels of the German version use a combination of Metro No. 2 and Erbar-Grotesk.

Columbia Records used the CBS imprint outside of the USA and was owned at the time by the Columbia Broadcasting System (then a major radio and television company).

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Rear of album cover – U.S. Stereo version

Album cover – Germany Stereo version

Record label – Germany version

Record label – Germany version

This self-titled double LP merges two previous compilations, Miles Davis Volume 1 (BLP 1501) and Miles Davis Volume 2 (BLP 1502), with music recorded between 1952 and 1954. Released in 1971 by United Artists Records, the deluxe set comes in a gatefold cover. A four-page booklet is fixed to the center, featuring liner notes by Colman Andrews.

Designer Bob Cato used ITC Avant Garde Gothic throughout, including giant caps from the Light weight for “MILES DAVIS”, with the oblique alternates for M A and V. The iconic geometric sans by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase was made available just a year before, as one of ITC’s first releases.

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The numeral 1 here has a long diagonal nose – unlike in the specimens for ITC Avant Garde Gothic that I have seen.

Front and back cover

Reversed Caslon 540 used exclusively in italic capitals, with enlarged swash initials.

Laura Nyro (1947–1997) was an important American singer/songwriter of the 1960s and 1970s. Her critically acclaimed albums Eli & The Thirteenth Confession and New York Tendaberry were influential for numerous artists including Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Rickie Lee Jones, Elton John, Todd Rundgren, Patti Smith, Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, and Suzanne Vega. In 2012 she was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

“Eli's Comin” is a single from her second studio album Eli & The Thirteenth Confession, which she also titled in part after the song. The song was written and recorded in 1968 and produced and arranged by Charlie Calello. Three Dog Night recorded a version of the song that went to #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969. A version of the B-side song “Sweet Blindness” was recorded by The Fifth Dimension in 1968 and went to #13 on The Billboard Hot 100. The Fifth Dimension also performed the song with Frank Sinatra on television the same year.

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Milton Glaser’s iconic poster was commissioned by Columbia Records (art direction by Bob Cato) and included in each copy of the Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits album released in 1967.

While the silhouette in profile was inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s 1957 self-portrait, the colors and shapes were influenced by the Art Nouveau period. [Smithsonian] The letterforms are from Baby Teeth, designed by Glaser in 1964, taking his cue from a painted sign for a tailor in Mexico City.

I said if I have to use the word Dylan I’ll use this typeface largely because there wasn’t anything that looked quite like that around and I wanted to make the word itself look peculiar.

Read more about this iconic piece of 1960s American graphic design in “Designing Dylan”, an in-depth interview with Milton Glaser conducted by Martin Dupuis.

An authorized reproduction of the poster is available from Milton Glaser’s website.

German version

“Cover art: Bob Cato.” The design is not explicitly credited, but it is likely Cato who did many other covers for Columbia.

I was surprised to see Miller & Richard’s Grotesque No. 3 used in a 1960s American design. It was my understanding that Stephenson Blake replaced M&R’s Grotesques with their own when they absorbed the foundry. But maybe this style survived at phototypesetters in the US. Digitally, the closest thing is Founders Grotesk.