Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Alan Mays and tagged with “belgian”, “broadgauge”, “glyptic shaded”, “old style extended”, “fashion”, “cloister”, and “french clarendon shaded”. License: All Rights Reserved.

This is a nineteenth-century advertising trade card for John P. Schaum, gas fitter and plumber, whose business was located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The other side of the card features an illustration with a rabbit and flowers.

Chandeliers, Coal Oil Lamps, and Gas Fixtures.
Stoves, Heaters, and Ranges.
Gas Fitting and Plumbing.
John P. Schaum,
No. 24 South Queen Street, Lancaster, Pa.

The featured typefaces include Belgian (Bruce, 1867) and Fashion (Farmer, 1876). Most of the typefaces come from the catalog of MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan in Philadelphia. This includes Broadgauge (a foundry version of a design previously seen in wood as Antique Tuscan Extended, 1869) French Clarendon Shaded (1871), Cloister (1873), Glyptic Shaded, Caxtonian (both 1878), and Kitcat (1883). The grot on the back is a version of a design that was known in Germany as Moderne Steinschrift.

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Alan Mays and tagged with “fashion”, “kitcat”, “caxtonian” and “french clarendon shaded”. License: All Rights Reserved.

The Bienal de Arte Flamenco de Málaga is a cultural gathering that celebrates flamenco as an artistic expression and living heritage. A space for exchange and visibility around cante singing, dance, and guitar playing, it highlights flamenco tradition and its connection to the city, bringing together artists, audiences, and diverse contexts around a deeply rooted culture. It took place in Málaga from May 27 to August 2, 2025.

To develop its visual identity, we began with a process of research and visual archaeology, diving into flamenco posters from the 1970s and 80s. We were interested in reviving their way of communicating: the typography, the abundance of text, the colors, and that distinctive style characteristic of popular graphic culture. With respect, we reinterpreted this tradition through a contemporary lens, preserving the authenticity, energy, and passion of flamenco.

For the main masthead, we opted for a combination of 20th-century typefaces, bringing together Umbra and Copperplate Gothic. The dialogue between Umbra’s expressiveness and play of shadows and Copperplate Gothic’s solid, classical character creates a headline with presence, personality, and a certain timeless quality. This pairing strengthens the identity’s character while connecting it to the graphic tradition that inspired the project.

For secondary information, we used Annonce and, for residual information, Futura. A project with a highly typographic character. A revision of flamenco aesthetics brought into the present day.

The book brings together the best annual projects of the Academy. Printed in six-colour offset with the addition of a metallic Pantone, and partially in Risograph (internal insert), it employs hand-crafted movable type for the titles, with manual typesetting combined with black-and-white photography, as well as artist illustrations produced through intaglio and engraving, printed in two colours.

The layout is conceived as a fluid composition: a hybrid system of techniques and visual overlays that positions the book somewhere between graphic design and the artist’s book. While flipping through the pages, readers can access additional audio content related to the various activities.

Some of the typefaces used belong to the Academy’s collection of movable type. This includes a version of Inserat-Grotesk – possibly Fondografica’s Piacenza – and Motor. The names and origins of others are uncertain or undocumented.

The E and P are from an Art Deco typeface that’s similar to Triennale.

Vom Fels zum Meer (“From rock to sea”) is an “illustrated journal for the German house” edited by Wilhelm Spemann (1844–1910) and published from 1881 to 1917. Between 1890 and 1897, Spemann’s publishing house was merged into Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, a company he had founded together with Adolf Kröner (1836–1911).

The shown letter was sent in January 1894 to one of the family journal’s advertisers, the “Duc” Cycle Co. in Herzogenbusch, that is ’s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. “Duc” was a brand by B.A. Jansen who imported bicycles manufactured by the Quinton Cycle Co. in Coventry, England. Pasted in the bottom left corner is a sample of the ad that was to be included in Vom Fels zum Meer.

The text block at the top right features five different blackletter typefaces. The title is set in Renaissance-Fraktur, with the subtitle added in a version of Original-Gotisch. “Monats-Ausgabe” uses a German adaptation of Tudor Black, possibly Psalter-Gotisch by Krebs. Last but not least, we get to see Flinsch’s Halbfette Schwabacher and Albert Anklam’s Neue Schwabacher.

Detail

An atmospheric 1950s sleeve design with two colorfully striped planets, for Nixa’s 7″ release with the first and fourth movement from Gustav Holt’s The Planets: Mars, the Bringer of War, and Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity. The music was recorded by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (here credited as Philharmonic Promenade Orchestra for contractual reasons) under Sir Adrian Boult (1889–1983).

The fonts in use are Annonce and Stephenson Blake’s Condensed Sans Serifs Italic.

[More info on Discogs]

An election poster attacking the government of Adolf Hitler and promoting the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in the March 1933 German federal election, the last election in Germany before the Nazi Party banned all other political parties.

The headline (“Reward 1,000 Reichsmark”) uses a version of Inserat-Grotesk schmal, possibly the schmalfett style of Phönix-Groteske by Krebs. The other typefaces are all by this Frankfurt/Main type foundry: the bulk of the text uses fette Merian-Fraktur, though there are two lines in schmale fette Brentano-Fraktur. The word “dass” at the beginning of each point is in halbfette Federzug-Antiqua, and the numeral in “Liste 2” likely is from Freihand-Groteske.

The poster was printed by the Offenbacher Abendblatt, a party-owned newspaper founded in 1874 which had to cease publication shortly after when the National Socialists came to power.

This thin booklet titled “Little swimming school” was published by C. Koch’s Verlagsbuchhandlung in Nuremberg, Germany. The cover is set in a Fette Fraktur, with the title in a less commonly seen compressed version.

An advert from the early 1940s places the Bonmatí pharmacy at the upperside of the Rambla in Figueres, in the Catalonian region of Girona. Although the pharmacy moved to a new address few years ago, the old signage is still preserved at its original location. At the new address, the Bonmatí family preserves a ceramic sign and the cabinet that was used to store the labels for the pharmacy’s products. Typography and lettering, letterpress and lithography. A few millimetres of paper were used to create small graphic universes to organise the categories of pharmaceutical products.

“Para tomar a cucharadas” and “Jarabe de savia de pino”: Neo Futura (Neufville’s name for Futura Black), Grotesca ancha nueva (Gans), and Antigua Mercedes (Neufville’s name for Tages-Antiqua)
“Uso indicado” and “Uso interno”: Romana estrecha negra (Fundición Tipográfica Nacional)
“Veterinaria” (and also “Fricciones”, “Inhalaciones” etc.): Cleopatra negra (Iranzo)
“Alcohol 96”: Futura (Neufville/Bauer)
“Tintura de Yodo” (and “Alcohol alcanforado”): Futura chupada, Neufville’s name for Futura Condensed
“Agua picrica”: Predilecta (Iranzo’s version of Kristall-Grotesk)
“Limonada purgante”: Grotesca Mercantil (Gans; see Longina)

“Agua de azahar”: unidentified typeface

“A toques”: Bernhard-Kursiv fett (Bauer)

Rows 1–3: Romana estrecha negra (serif) and an unidentified sans
Row 4: Predilecta
Row 5: “Bicarbonato de sosa” is in an unidentified typeface that has several glyphs in common with Roundhead and is also very close to Runic Grotesque (but with asymmetrical T). “Una cucharadita cada 2 horas” is in Venus Bold (Bauer).

Row 1: Fresko a.k.a. Cartoon (Bauer) with Predilecta
Rows 2–4: Antigua Mercedes, Futura, and Cleopatra. The labels in the last row additionally features Grotesca ancha nueva (“Puncem”) and Futura Condensed.

Top left (“Timol”): a local version of Zeitungs-Grotesque (Grotesca ancha by Gans, Grotesca negra by FTN, or Fette Grotesk by Bauer), Venus, Futura chupada negra, Bodoni, and a local version of Copperplate Gothic (Helénica ancha by Gans or Espartana estrecha by FTN)

Top right (“Callicida”): an unidentified wide grotesk, Futura, Venus

Bottom left: both weights of Cleopatra, Futura Italic, Grotesca ancha nueva, and a fine Bowl of Hygieia

Bottom right: Venus and Futura

Lithographic labels by J. Garcia printing house, Barcelona. Most text on these is lettering. The address is added in Cleopatra.

Different styles of lettering

License: All Rights Reserved.

Letterhead by José de Ros

Josep de Ros was an industrialist from Figueres, Spain, born in the manor house of Les Olives into an aristocratic family. Around 1917, he started a business in the fertilizer sector and opened the Camponal liquor distillery a few years later. He had a warehouse on Vilallonga Avenue in Figueres, near the railway station, close to the border with France. He died in 1935.

In the shown letterheads by Josep/José de Ros from around 1930, the difference between typography and lettering is difficult to appreciate (thanks to the staff of Fonts In Use for the clarifications).

License: All Rights Reserved.

Detail of the letterhead: “José de Ros / Abonos, cereales y despojos / Figueras”. All three styles are lettering.

The name is in an English script close to Stempel’s Künstler-Schreibschrift, known in Spanish as Inglesa Artista semi-negra, with an ornamented J and a characteristic loop around the stem of the R. Josep de Ros i Moner (father) and Josep de Ros i Reig (son) were descendents of Ros de Olano. In Stempel’s 1918 specimen book for the Spanish market, the name of Ros de Olano is set in Inglesa Artista (it’s misspelled as “Olona”; another page in the same book has the correct spelling).

“Figueras” is drawn in a serif with inline. The structure is very close to the Bravour typeface designed by Martin Jacoby-Boy for Stempel in 1912), but with sharper serifs, and a wider letter U with a small spur. I have made a comparison with the solid Bravour negra and the decorated Bravour adornado (Verzierte Bravour).

License: All Rights Reserved.

Comparison of the lettered inline caps to the Bravour typeface

From the obituary for the father in La Veu de l’Empordá, 27 December 1919 (translated):

[…] Josep de Ros was from a noble family, from the stately house of Ros located in the town of Les Olives, although the one they owned in this city could also be considered a manor. Among the ancestors of the house are the famous General Ros de Olano, who was a minister of the Crown and commanded an army corps in the African War during the years 1859 and 1860. The last Prior of the Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll also came from the Ros family.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Detail of the letterhead featuring Merveille, Kleukens, and Venus, all by Bauer/Neufville

The Camponal letterhead is typographic: it’s set in the typefaces Merveille, Kleukens-Kursiv and Venus-Grotesk, all by the Bauer type foundry (Merveille originated in the United States under the name Laclede), and distributed in Spain by the Neufville branch in Barcelona. Bauer’s typefaces were the most commonly used ones in Catalonia before the Franco dictatorship (1939). This letterhead helped to locate the forgotten Camponal distillery.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Label featuring Venus schmal dreiviertelfett, Fette Grotesk-Kursiv, and Clio a.k.a. Kleopatra

The Camponal identity uses other typefaces by Bauer and Neufville, like Antigua Mercedes (the Spanish name of Tages-Antiqua), Bernhard-Antiqua, Fette Grotesk-Kursiv, Carnaby (Marocco), Grotesca Estrecha (Neue enge Zeitungs-Grotesk), Florentiner Mediaeval, and Majestic.

A few typefaces could have been sourced from different type foundries based in Madrid and Valencia, like Clio (Ludwig Wagner, 1903) distributed by Neufville/Bauer as Kleopatra and by Gans as Aurora; or Aurora Grotesk (Wagner & Schmidt, 1908) sold by Gans as Grotesca Ideal and by Fundición Tipográfica Nacional as Grotesca Estrecha.

Typography and lettering also coexist in other elements, such as in the Camponal liquour labels and packaging.

Learn more about Josep de Ros and the Camponal distillery.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Camponal label featuring lettering (white letters), Kleukens-Antiqua, and Majestic

License: All Rights Reserved.

Label featuring Kleukens-Antiqua, Venus, and an unidentified typeface (similar to Stempel’s Holzhausen-Antiqua, but with a different M)

License: All Rights Reserved.

Bottle label ft. lettering, an unidentified grotesk for “Licor de Hierbas ‘Camponal’” (similar to Grotesca Favorita by Gans), and Bauer’s Kleopatra

License: All Rights Reserved.

Packaging ft. lettering (the reversed letters at the top), Marocco a.k.a. Carnaby for “Cura estómago e intestinos”, Majestic for “G. Garriga”, and other unidentified typefaces

License: All Rights Reserved.

Camponal ad ft. Bernhard-Antiqua, Universitäts-Antiqua a.k.a Druckhaus-Antiqua, Neue enge Zeitungs-Grotesk, Tages-Antiqua a.k.a. Antigua Mercedes, and others

License: All Rights Reserved.

Point-of-sale display ft. Columbus, a version of Edel-Grotesk (probably Groteska Moderna by Fundición Tipográfica Nacional), and Schmale halbfette Etienne

License: All Rights Reserved.

Camponal ad ft. Bernhard-Antiqua, Tages-Antiqua a.k.a. Antigua Mercedes, Universitäts-Antiqua, Florentiner Mediaeval, Kleukens-Antiqua, and an unidentified grotesk

License: All Rights Reserved.

Address label ft. Etienne Sombreada (Gans’s version of Umstochene Etienne by Schelter & Giesecke), Venus, and Antigua Veneciana (Gans’s version of ATF’s Cheltenham)

License: All Rights Reserved.

In 1881, brothers Hermann, Gustav, and Wilhelm Schurath opened a paper shop with a bag-making workshop in Leipzig. They added a paper mill in their home town of Brandis, Saxony, in 1883. Fifty-five years later, in 1938, Wilhelm Schurath G.m.b.H. issued this invoice for 2,260 glassine window envelopes with gummed flaps, plus another fifty of second quality.

The design of the invoice features four different styles from a large sans-serif family that went under various names. The company name and location are shown in the bold extended Edel-Grotesk fett a.k.a. Aurora V. All other preprinted text (disregarding the typewritten additions) is set in three weights from the regular-wide Neue moderne Grotesk a.k.a. Aurora I–IV.

Another invoice in SLUB’s Saxonia collection shows that the same basic design was used already in 1936. On that version, parts of the header are set in two weights of Futura, though, resulting in a less harmonious pairing.

According to Frank Schimpke, the company continued to operate as Wilhelm Schurath KG until 1970, when it was nationalized and renamed VEB Verpackungsmittelwerk Brandis.

William H. Moyer, of Pottsville, Pa., received a V.S. (Veterinary Surgeon) degree from the Ontario Veterinary College in Toronto during the commencement held on March 28, 1891, according to a note in the Journal of Comparative Medicine and Veterinary Archives, vol. 12, no. 5, May 1891, pp. 261-64.

Afterwards, he set up a practice in Elizabethville, Pa., as indicated on this business card. Someone penciled in the year “1890” on the front of the card, and the name “J. Romberger” is written on the back.

Dr. W. H. Moyer,
Veterinary Surgeon and Dentist, Elizabethville, Pa.
Graduate of the Ontario Veterinary College, Member of the Veterinary Medical Society, of Toronto, Canada.
Four Year’s Practice with Dr. J. W. Sallade, V.S., of Pottsville, Pa.

The doctor’s name is set in John F. Cumming’s Karnac (Dickinson, 1884). The condensed low-contrast slab for his job description is unidentified – it’s similar to Skeleton. “Elizabethville, Pa.” is in a Gothic, possibly Boston’s. Additional typefaces include (an American version or relative?) of Antique Five, Latin Antique, a light Clarendon/Ionic, and what looks like Antique No. 310, Bruce’s version of Old Style Antique No. 7.

This album by jazz pianist and composer George Russell (1923–2009) was issued by Flying Dutchman Records in 1971:

The Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature, commissioned by Bosse Broberg of Swedish Radio for the Radio Orchestra, was first recorded in 1968, as an extended work recorded with electronic tape. It continued Russell's continuing exploration of new approaches and new instrumentation.

Marit Jerstad’s cover design features a textile print by Anna Russell and Calypso by Roger Excoffon. Or is it? Something looks fishy about this rendition. On closer inspection, it’s indeed another case of lettering derived from Calypso: all the glyphs were reinterpreted and drawn by hand, complete with the halftone pattern.

Hat tip to Andrey.

[More info on Discogs]

The first-edition jacket for The New Journalism depicts a stylized floating skyscraper. Behind each of its twenty-one windows, there’s the silhouette of a New Journalism author hammering away at their typewriter. The fantastic airship is moved by a gigantic pencil, obviously at some speed, as the motion lines indicate. Dozens of open books flutter around the flying building in strict formation like a well-organized swarm of butterflies.

The typography brings together the shaded caps of Marble Heart for the title (with “Journalism” highlighted by the yellow pencil body), Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed for the names of the anthology editors, and all-caps Windsor Elongated for the names of the featured authors. “By Tom Wolfe” probably is lettering.

I’d love to learn who designed this! Gloria Adelson is credited for the book’s interior, but I don’t think this extends to the dust jacket.

The back lists the twenty-three texts included in the anthology in two weights of Helvetica. Two authors, Hunter S. Thompson and Wolfe himself are featured twice.

Bach by Eve Mary Grew & Sydney Grew

Two biographies of famous composers published by Collier Books in 1966. For the covers, Seymour Chwast placed Bach’s face in the crown of a tree, and Mozart’s inside a crescent moon. Their names are shown in a chromatic setting of Marble Heart, with Egyptienne Bold Condensed used for the authors.

Mozart by Eric Blom

Sally Jeffery on Internet Archive:

Catalogue for an exhibition of work by by artists and cartoonists that opened at the Partisan coffee house, Carlisle Street, Soho, in February 1959. The typography and the graphic elements were devised, made and printed letterpress by Desmond Jeffery.

Jeffery’s modern layout uses Standard (Akzidenz-Grotesk’s English name) and Doric Italic (Stephenson Blake’s version of Fette Kursiv-Grotesk).

First US edition of A Vision of Battlements. Anthony Burgess based his first novel on his experiences during World War II in Gibraltar, where he was serving with the British army. Written in 1949, it wasn’t published until 1965, following the success of A Clockwork Orange.

Jacket designer Larry Lurin had the title set on a curve, in two lines of all-caps Marble Heart. The shaded design dates back to the mid-1800s; ATF reissued it in 1933. Its quaint allure goes together well with the illustration depicting a saluting soldier as the inverted pendulum in a mechanical metronome.

Karuta is a traditional Japanese card game where players listen to short descriptions read aloud from a reader’s card. Each turn, players race to grab the matching card with the corresponding picture or text, and the player with the most cards at the end wins.

Font Karuta is a variation designed for typography enthusiasts. Instead of pictures, the reader announces the font name and description on the reader’s card, and players compete to pick up the card displaying that font. The player who collects the most cards wins the game.

This edition is the “extension package” featuring only blackletter designs.

From top left to bottom right: Respira Black, FF Brokenscript, a couple letters from Breitkopf-Fraktur, Blackmoor, Claudius, an e and an exclamation mark from Old English, Wallau, Amador, Fakir, San Marco, American Text, Caslon-Gotisch, Engravers Old English, Marian Black, Fette Fraktur, Lucida Blackletter, JAF Herb, Gutenberg Textura, Alte Schwabacher, Goudy Text, Fette Kanzlei, and a tiny bit of Fette Gotisch. Featured in the game but not shown in the images are Deutsche Schrift and Wedding Text.

The box front features the title in Amador, with Clairvaux for the list of included typefaces. The Japanese font appears to be DNP Shuei ShogoMincho. The Font Karuta logo is in Akko.

The German-language game instructions are set in Gutenberg Textura with a headline in Blackmoor, in caps of alternating colors.

Surfer Girl is the third studio album by The Beach Boys, released in 1963 on Capitol Records. It marked the first time Brian Wilson was credited as the group's sole producer and features early classics like the title track “Surfer Girl”, “Little Deuce Coupe”, and “In My Room”.

The album title and band name is set in an italicized version of Latin Condensed. Song names are set in what appears to be Inserat-Grotesk and another, less compressed sans that’s yet unidentified. The cover photo was taken by Capitol Records staff photographer Ken Veeder. The cover was designed by Capitols in-house art department.

[More info on Discogs]

The back cover features News Gothic and Century Schoolbook.

The Große Düsseldorfer Kunstausstellung was a large art exhibition that took place at Düsseldorf’s Kunstpalast (Ehrenhof) from 9 April to 7 May 1961.

Wolf D. Zimmermann designed the key visual and brochure cover. He opted for a lockup involving seventeen times the letter D (or d), for Düsseldorf. Many of the featured typefaces were released in the decade before the exhibition, including Salto (Klingspor, 1952), Vendôme italique (Fonderie Olive, 1953), Pro Arte (Haas, 1954), Time Script (Weber, 1956) Folio schmalfett (Bauer, 1956), and Papageno (Bauer, 1958). The only typeface to appear twice, in upper- and lowercase, is Volta (Bauer, 1955).

The exhibition title at the top is added in Helvetica. I’m not quite sure if the elongated didone D really is from Onyx. And I didn’t track down the specific Bodoni (?) version.

Via Jens Müller, who praises Zimmermann as one of his favorite designers.

Michelangelo Poeta: Letto da Vittorio Gassman is a 1964 spoken-word album narrated by Vittorio Gassman and released by Cetra. The album revolves around Michelangelo, his legacy, and his art, which is communicated via songs, poems, and other means.

The title sans is Venus Bold Condensed (or a local copy thereof), used on the front in all-lowercase, contrasted with a bold weight from a version of Neue Moderne Grotesk, probably Nebiolo’s Cairoli tonda nerissima. Below the main part of the design – featuring Studi di figura – is a small subtitle set in what looks like Narciso tonda chiara larga, Nebiolo’s name for the light weight of Edel-Grotesk, and Etrusco Chiaro Stretto. Surrounding everything is Fette Kursiv-Grotesk, which was included in Nebiolo’s Etrusco family as the corsivo nerissimo normale style. Also present on the back cover is a version of Aster with compact descenders for Vincenzo Talarico’s liner notes and Semplicità for the address.

[More info on Discogs]