Front cover featuring the Vandellas in a wheat field; above them is a rainbow with the group’s name, album title and featured tracks overlaid.

Title (in white) set in Bulletin Script #2; group name and featured tracks (both in black) set in Century Expanded Bold.

Hi, gay! Happy pridem’th!

Bulletin Script Two in prominent usage du homosexuelles on the cover of Natural Resources, the seventh studio album by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.

The cover was designed by Curtis McNair and Tom Schlesinger, with photography by Jim Hendin.

[More info on Discogs]

Back cover, also featuring the group name and album title.

Credits (regular) and track list (bold) set in Univers. As the images used are of a British pressing, additional information (added by distributor EMI Records) are also set in Univers. “File under POPULAR : Pop Groups” set in Gill Sans.

Typographics is an annual festival held in New York City that explores the roots of modern typography and current trends in the field. It is presented by Type@Cooper and The Herb Lubalin Study Center at The Cooper Union in New York City.

The identity of the 2024 edition uses a rich palette of typefaces. Boogy Brut (including the Poster, Wild White and Black White styles) from Julien Priez and Bureau Brut, Pastiche Grotesque from Benjamin Tuttle and Order Type Foundry, Konop from Mark Simonson and Hamilton Wood Type Foundry, Dark Academia (Céline’s Version) from Céline Hurka, and Baleze Display from Daytona Mess.

Groovin’ with the Soulful Strings, Cadet LPS-796, 1967. Photography by Don S. Bronstein. [More info on Discogs]

From Wikipedia:

The Soulful Strings were an American soul-jazz instrumental group formed in Chicago in 1966. Predominantly a studio band, the project was created and led by Richard Evans, a staff producer and musical arranger with the Chess Records subsidiary Cadet Records. […] Between 1966 and 1971, the Soulful Strings released six studio albums, all recorded at Chess’s Ter Mar Studios, and one live album.

With the excption of the 1966 debut, Paint It Black, and the last album from 1970, The Soulful Strings Play Gamble-Huff, all albums feature Bulletin Script Two for the cover typography in one form or another. The left-leaning, bottom-heavy script is used in all caps, with various amounts of stretching. In most cases, the secondary typeface is News Gothic (see the captions for exceptions). Jerry Griffith is credited with the design of all shown covers.

Another Exposure, Cadet LPS-805, 1968. Photography by Ruyell Ho. [More info on Discogs]

The Magic of Christmas, Cadet LPS-814, 1968. Photography by Ray Klein. [More info on Discogs] The song names are set in News Gothic Extended.

The Soulful Strings in Concert, Cadet LPS-820, 1969. Photography by Jerry Griffith. [More info on Discogs] The small type again uses News Gothic Extended.

String Fever, Cadet LPS-834, 1969. Photography by Jerry Griffith. [More info on Discogs] The second line (in purple) is in Mercator Cursief, the italic style of Mercator. Amsterdam Continental integrated this typeface into the Standard series – the export name of Akzidenz-Grotesk – and sold it in the US as Standard Italic. See this post on FontID.co for more information.

The 2023 Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion in downtown Bristol, Tennessee & Virginia, featured Margo Price and Nickel Creek, amongst other musicians.

HWT Etta East, the non-decorated member of Lynne Yun & Maxime Gau’s Etta family, is used for the name of the event. It's paired up with a sans serif typeface, Adam Ladd’s Gopher.

Poster

Still from the video trailer

Still from the video trailer

Still from the video trailer

Span and the Emmy Award-winning performance collective Manual Cinema co-created a short film and original theatrical work entitled Countdown that combines handmade shadow puppetry, live actors, music performance, and Span’s digital animation.

Countdown follows an unnamed protagonist as she attempts to escape from numbers that frantically shift around her. Beginning with the handmade sets and projected cinematic techniques by Manual Cinema, the piece visually evolves into a 3D digital world created and animated by Span.

Countdown was conceived by partner John Pobojewski who led the art direction, design, and animation for Span’s digital landscapes together with Zach Minnich and Valeria Bernal. Manual Cinema’s Sarah Fornace, Drew Dir, and Julia Miller led the story development and puppetry performance. Music and sound was composed by Ben Kauffman and Kyle Vegter.

The numerals set throughout the piece include custom typography drawn by Valeria Bernal and Nick Adam, as well as the most amount of typefaces we’ve ever used, including: Adieu, HWT Aetna, Bodoni, Camera, Central Avenue, Dirk, Eklips, Empire Fold, Geometric, Gravity, Hoefler Text, Inline, HWT Konop, Megavolt, Sharp Grotesk, Trois Mille, United Sans and WTF Empire.

Manual Cinema use “vintage overhead projectors, multiple screens, puppets, actors, live feed cameras, multi-channel sound design, and a live music ensemble to transform the experience of attending the cinema and imbue it with liveness, ingenuity, and theatricality.” They have received national recognition by the New York Times and were featured in the 2021 film remake of Candyman directed by Nia DaCosta and produced by Jordan Peele.

One way / 9th Avenue, set in Central Avenue

Custom drawn numerals 4 and 3

Weather forecast, featuring HWT Konop, ABC Gravity and Sharp Grotesk

Running past the number 8, set in United Sans

From left to right: Dirk (4); Bodoni (23) and a yet unidentified typeface used for the number 24

Door number set in HWT Aetna

Tumbling numbers 9. Visible here are Adieu, United Sans and Hoefler Text

Trois Mille in use for the number 60, the ultracondensed numbers 40 on the right use ABC Gravity

The left-leaning, bottom-heavy and descenderless face on this sleeve for a 1968 single by Sandy Posey (b. 1944) is Bulletin Script Two. Or probably Bazaar, which is the name used by Lettergraphics for their 1960s phototype adaptation. Printed by Ludwig Fr. Noltemeyer, Braunschweig.

Record collector Klaus Hiltscher comments:

She is a year younger than me. I really loved her voice. Even in this new times today I think every hit of her is a nice, good arranged and good composed song. I wonder that in Germany they released every single of her, as usual over here in nice pic sleeves!

[More info on Discogs]

Our friends at Letterform Archive will hold their next Rare Book Sale on December 9, 2023. Typophiles eager to get their hands on some delightful duplicates can drop by on-site in San Francisco or online at the website. Hint, hint: members get early access to the sale.

We’re clearing out a treasure trove of rare duplicates from the collection, from 19th–20th-century type specimens and hard-to-find design books and periodicals, to ephemera and other design collectibles. This is the perfect place to discover something special for your own collection or to snag a few unique holiday gifts, whether you attend the local sale or browse our special online selection from wherever you are.

Elise Carlton’s design for the announcement indulges in a 19th-century aesthetic, and specifically references chromatic wood type like that shown by William H. Page in 1874. The star of the show is HWT Etta. Designed by Lynne Yun and Maxime Gau, it consists of two styles, East and West, and was released in 2021 with the Hamilton Wood Type Foundry. Established in 2012, that’s a joint venture between P22 Type Foundry and the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum.

The word “AND” on the right is a so-called catchword. Such decorative whole-word sorts were common in American wood type and are also known as logotypes, or logograms. This specific glyph is included in Miranda Roth’s HWT Catchwords. Other digital fonts with similar vintage catchwords include Brothers, Adobe Wood Type Ornaments, and Catch Words JNL.

The festive setting is crowned by Crayonette DJR, David Jonathan Ross’s digital revival of an italic design with horizontal contrast that was originally dreamt up by Henry Brehmer in 1889.

Addendum: I learned that for the 2023 announcement, Carlton reused her design from the previous year, with new colors.

From Ohio History Connection:

Dated 1885, this broadside advertises dry goods and other items, such as hats, caps, boots and shoes, overalls, ladies’ and children’s hose, notions of all kinds, glass and queensware, crockery, wooden-ware, iron-ware, etc., sold at discounted prices from February 1, 1885–March 4, 1885, in honor of President-elect Grover Cleveland, at Calvin & Frazier in Lena, Ohio.

The typographic design opens with a big “LOOK HERE!”, printed from a wood type version of French Clarendon. The other larger lines are set in Antique Tuscan Extended (“Cash or Trade“, “DRY GOODS”), Gothic Round (“COME AND SEE”), and Bailey Shaded (“OUR WELL SELECTED STOCK!”). Most text is set in a sans of narrow proportions, possibly Gothic Condensed No. 5. There’s also a Clarendon/Ionic and a few more unidentified typefaces.

Nike graphic shirt

“Let Your Sole Shine” – Sole Craft is a collection of three graphic shirts released by Nike this summer. The reverse-contrast HWT Etta East is used as the typeface for this collection.

Nike graphic shirt

Nike graphic shirt

Nike graphic shirt

Nike graphic shirt

Nike graphic shirt

From Wikipedia:

Chthon is a science fiction novel by American writer Piers Anthony, originally released in 1967. It was Anthony's first published novel, and was nominated for both the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1967 and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1968.

Shown here is a British paperback edition published by Panther Books in 1972. All-caps Gothic Round is paired up with Helvetica on the cover. The cover art is uncredited.

[More info on ISFDB]

Les Louis Boys are an iconic Franco-Manitoban music group formed in 1972 in Winnipeg. It has played countless times at the Festival du Voyageur. Two albums were recorded by the now-defunct Century 21 Studios.

The past and current members are Edwin Prince, Gabriel “Moose” Masse, Michel “Butch” Boucher, Marcel Vernier, Paul Belanger, Paul Heppenstall, Marc Allard, Pierre Morier, Marc D'Eschambault, Marcel Druwé and Jacques Dorge. But there are nine members according to their album produced in collaboration with Les Productions Jolly Ltée (aka Jolly), which was recorded in November of 1976 and released probably in the same year. The picture above is the second edition released in the late 70s or early 80s (the sticker uses Letraset Pump).

The cover of this album, printed in brown and scarlet red spot colors, uses Gill Sans Extrabold for the title in a tightly spaced setting and with an elongated letter l, with Univers 75 as well for the tracklisting. The Festival du Voyageur logo is in a predigital version of Bulletin Script Two with added distortion.

The body copy on the back and the identifiers appear to be in Theme, a typeface created for the IBM Selectric typewriters between 1968 and 1972.

[More info on Discogs]

Josh MacPhee's activist print of 2021, and the 2020 protest poster from which it is derived. Both an homage to the French protest slogans of May 1968: “Sous les pavés, la plage!” (“Under the paving stones, the beach!”).

Both posters are 2-colour risograph prints. The 2021 print is in blue and red, the earlier 2020 print is in black and red. Josh MacPhee explains some of the differences on Justseeds:

This is a reworking and new color scheme for my Under the Burning Cop Cars… print. I’ve removed the word “the beach” at the end of the text, leaving the May 1968 reference hanging. So if you know, you know, if not, you don’t need to know for it to make sense!

Underneath the stenciled art of a cop car on fire we have the text set in all-caps HWT Artz. With a cheeky change of colour for the full stop on the 2021 print.

As of writing, the 2021 print is available from Justseeds.

Custom woven blanket featuring HWT Etta East (Hamilton Wood Type Collection, 2021) for Faire Type’s studio. HWT Etta was designed by Lynne Yun together with Maxime Gau of Faire Projects.

New branding for Sydney’s Akasha Brewing. A new logo, consisting of an impactful hop and triangle motif, was created to accompany a direct and immediate wordmark set in Linotype Franklin Gothic Condensed. The core range of five flagship beers consists of a minimal monochrome design.

The Akasha Project sub-brand is where the team explores their art at its most exciting – a celebration of the different, the unexpected, the alluring – with each beer allowed to manifest its own unique character.

The Akasha Project cans play with a range of fonts from vintage classics such as Arabesque, Hobo, Gill Kayo and Roberta, to retro-revival typefaces like Break Maiden’s Vacation. Sharp Type’s Beatrice is used for all information.

“Korben” is set in Gill Kayo.

"Little Korben" uses Gill Kayo

“Talus” is set in Hobo.

“Double queen” is set in Roberta.

“The Eagle” pairs Beatrice with Pilowlava.

"Blood Orange Gose" uses custom lettering, paying homage to Dario Argento's '4 Mosche Di Velluto Grigio' (Four Flies on Grey Velvet).

Poster Boy is used for "Frida".

“Cloud” is set in Scorpio / Hoopla.

Vacation Display is used for “Endless Haze”.

“Double Hazy” uses HWT Arabesque.

Packaging design for the Tere brand pasteles – a very common local food in Puerto Rico. Without them, there's no Christmas.

The information about the main ingredients of the pastela is typeset in HWT Artz, and Halis Grotesque is used for all other information.

Urban Wood Goods build furniture from reclaimed wood. The logo combines five typefaces: Gothic Leavenworth, Gothic Medium, Landry Gothic, Public Notice JNL, and Times Gothic Bold. “After designing the logo and icon, we had each of the characters CNC-cut from Urban Wood Good’s supply of reclaimed wood, then inked them up and printed them to create the final versions.”, says identity designer Anna Mort.

The website was designed by Exhibea. All typography uses a simple system of two font families, Unit Gothic (718 and 720) and URW’s Futura. Both of these fonts are revivals, digitizations of wood type and metal type.

From the Order website:

James Felton Keith is a Harlem-based entrepreneur, engineer, and community activist running for U.S. Congress in New York's 13th Disctrict. James, or JFK, is the first Black member of the LGBTQ community to run for federal office.

The identity for Keith’s campaign is a modular typographic system built around Mark Simonson’s HWT Konop typeface. The typeface was designed for the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum to be produced as physical letterpress type, with each glyph designed in a square-based system so the wooden blocks can be rotated and locked up easily in a grid. As such, the digital version of the typeface can also be used for creating rotational grid-based systems, which Keith’s campaign takes advantage of for some of its materials.

Keith’s campaign website also uses Avenir as a secondary typeface for body type, etc.

Front.

Jackson 5 Christmas Album LP was released by The Jackson 5 in 1970. Many of the tracks still receive airplay today. The album is maybe most known for a cover of 1934’s “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” with 12-year old Michael Jackson on lead vocals.

Back.

Dutch 7″ Maxi single.

BigBi is a carioca household name. A juice house with bright fruits hanging on the walls, tasty Açaí, and the friendliest service in the city.

We redesigned their identity using an eclectic mix of typefaces. An organized street fair vibe was our intention in the choosing of typefaces.

Starting from the body copy, Signo provided the right personality: quirkiness with the light inverted contrast yet readable and sturdy enough to carry the load. Rio is very much connected to its Portuguese heritage and the fact that it was made by the super talented Portuguese type designer Rui Abreu brought it home even more. It’s used in the big menu panel and printed matter.

Our own Manteiga was used as the main display typeface, for setting titles in the menu, posters and elsewhere. Then we threw some ingredients to the juice, adding the usual suspects for this type of work, like the House Signpainter collection (Showcard for numbers, Casual for the small dotted lines), Felipe Calderón’s Hollie Script, Erik Spiekermann’s HWT Artz, as well as some other 80s inspired graphics, set in Skia, which has a Lithos vibe, a typeface that was overused in Rio’s late 80s/early 90s scene.

The logo is the main element and provides contrast. We wanted the remaining elements to vibrate, feeling like they belong to the same idea but not being the same at all times.

Creative Direction: Rodrigo Saiani
Design: Rodrigo Saiani, Lucas Campoi, Carlos Mignot, Ana Laura Ferraz, Felipe Casaprima, Gabriel Menezes, Aline Caruso, Valter Costa
Architecture: Davide Dulcetti, Daniel Fernandes, Tiago Tasca, Nicolle Prado (Plano Arquitetura e Design)
Lettering: Felipe Casaprima, Carlos Mignot, Rodrigo Saiani
Photography: Tomás Rangel

Manteiga Gorda, Signo, and House Showcard (not Slant).

From Magnet Book version of Laurent De Brunhoff’s “Babar The Elephant” book series. Magnet’s versions used Gothic Round for the titles.