Letterpress printed Souvenir Ticket for the 2026 Bay Area Printers’ Fair & Wayzgoose. Printed in 2025 from vintage handset metal type, in order from top:

Caslon Bold Extended (1911)
Futura schmalhalbfett (1936)
Lilith (1930)
Figaro (1940)
Hellenic Wide (c.1954*)
Festival Titling (1952)
Gill Sans Cameo Ruled (1935)
Antique Condensed (pinmark from MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan, 19th century)
Ad Lib (1961)
Antique Shaded (1913)
Mistral (1953)
Plymouth (1900)

All borders are cast by Stephenson Blake, printed from new-in-box old stock fonts.

*) Note that Hellenic Wide is a 1950s adaptation of the same letter style as the 19th century Antique Extended.

This cover is for the 1960 US reissue (EMI-Capitol) of the 1958 UK release (His Master’s Voice) of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Gustav Holst’s The Planets, conducted by Malcolm Sargent. The image doesn’t depict any of the featured planets, though. If I’m not mistaken, the shown galaxy isn’t even the Milky Way, but Messier 81, also known as Bode’s Galaxy.

The title has lowercase letters from Hellenic Wide, arranged on a bouncing baseline. While the line at the bottom is set in all-caps Stymie, “HOLST” is in Stymie’s precursor, Litho Antique. The stereo note at the top features Venus Bold Extended.

[More info on Discogs]

You’re Gonna Hear From Me is one of three albums that Hawaiian crooner Don Ho (1930–2007) and his backing group The Aliis released in 1966. The cover design featuring photos of Ho and a blonde woman enclosed in male and female signs is by Ed Thrasher.

The singer’s name is in Neptun, a typeface that originated in 1900 at the Aktiengesellschaft für Schriftgießerei und Maschinenbau in Offenbach/Main, Germany. In 1962, Photo-Lettering made a phototype revival as part of their Art Nouveau Xenotypes 1895–1905. The Art Nouveau-infused hybrid between roman and blackletter saw renewed use in subsequent years, and more versions of it were also issued by others, including by Letraset.

The album’s title is set in tightly spaced lowercase letters from Helvetica, while the song names are shown in all caps.

[More info on Discogs]

The title treatment for The Fantastic Four: First Steps was first teased in 2024 by Marvel Studios for its feature film scheduled for cinematic screening in 2025.

With the conscious choice to reintroduce adding “the” before “Fantastic” and a nod to the earlier comics of the Fantastic Four series, this main title is typeset in DJR’s Condor Compressed Medium Italic with modified letters F and c in “Fantastic”.

The new number 4 logo design also present on the Fantastic Four hero uniforms takes sole presence, omitting a redundant use of the word “Four” in the titles as they have been presented in the title treatment’s history so far.

Above the main title we see the Marvel logo placed with the word “STUDIOS” set in Jason Walcott's Hooligan JF. Below we see the subtitle “FIRST STEPS” set in a slanted version of Jens Gehlhaar's FF Neuwelt Inline.

Portuguese version, with custom Q tail and r hook.

French version, with custom q.

The secondary text on this French poster is in Brother 1816.

Makeshift language extension for Vietnamese

Video: https://www.instagram.com/p/DMvb96SvCVw

Lonely Avenue (Nonesuch, USA, 2010). Cover design by John Heiden of Smog Design, with photography by Joel Meyerowitz.

Ben Folds and Nick Hornby’s collaboration album, Lonely Avenue, was released in September 2010.

The fonts used are Hellenic Wide for the text at the top and Fedra Sans Display Black Condensed for the “LONELY AVENUE” title below. The photograph used on the cover was taken by photographer Joel Meyerowitz at a Los Angeles airport in 1976.

[More info on Discogs]

Chowder is a Cartoon Network original series created by C.H. Greenblatt, originally a writer for SpongeBob SquarePants and the Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. From Wikipedia:

The series follows an aspiring young boy named Chowder and his day-to-day adventures as an apprentice in Chef Mung Daal's catering company. Although he means well, Chowder often finds himself in predicaments due to his perpetual appetite and his nature as a scatterbrain. Chowder's guidance in his goal to become a master chef is influenced by Mung's wife, Truffles; Mung's assistant Shnitzel; Mung's rival Ms. Endive; her apprentice Panini, who has a perpetual crush on Chowder; as well as other side characters.

The show had one win and two nominations at the Primetime Emmy Awards as well as six nominations at the Annie Awards.

In 2010, Cartoon Network published a series of story books. Shown here is the cover of Book 3, featuring Funny Bone JF and Typography of Coop Heavy. See more volumes from the series in the Internet Archive.

This album with Italian-style music by guitarist Al Caiola (1920–2016) from New Jersey was released in 1960 by Roulette Records. The cover photograph shows the Trevi Fountain in Rome.

The title typeface is a so-called Tuscan, drawn in Switzerland and baptized with a Spanish name: it’s Alex Stocker’s Juanita, shown in the first volume of the Lettera book series from 1954. The accompanying wide slab serif probably has roots in Germany, where it was named Breite Egyptienne (“wide Egyptian”). It later got a name that suggests a perceived Greek look or origin, Hellenic Wide.

[More info on Discogs]

Dancer’s Delight is an easy listening album recorded by David Carrol and His Orchestra and released with Mercury Records in 1956. Carroll (1913–2008) was a studio arranger and conductor who served as Mercury’s musical director from 1951 to the early 1960s.

His name and the album title are set in caps from Filmotype Wand. The wide slab serif with low contrast was released the year before, in 1955. In 2015, Charles Gibbons made a digital version, adding Cyrillic and Greek characters. Interestingly, “dance album” at the top left uses a related older design which was reissued by Bauer and ATF as Hellenic Wide. Filmotype had an adaptation as “HW”. The names of the instrumental tracks are rendered in caps from Copperplate Gothic Light Extended, a.k.a. CP36.

[More info on Discogs]

Let's Dance featuring Charleston Jitterbug Swing is a 2004 four disc CD box set by Quality Audio, containing various “meticulously remastered” dance songs.

The main two fonts on the front are freebies by Nick Curtis: Anagram, based on lettering by Austin Cooper, and FashionVictim, which is a high-contrast take on Bernhard Fashion. It’s paired with Bodega Sans by Greg Thompson, with its alternate g activated.

The back uses more Bodega Sans plus Hamburger Heaven NF, the latter of which is also by Nick Curtis. The type in a band is set in what looks like Adage Script JF, a version of Morris Fuller Benton’s Adscript, designed by Jason Walcott.

Front

Vol. 1, May 1968 [More info on Discogs]

In 1968, Reprise Records released a two-volume compilation of greatest hits by Dean Martin (1917–1995). For the first volume, art director Ed Thrasher specified Tempo Black for the title, paired with Futura for the song names. Tempo was Ludlow’s response to Bauer’s Futura. Its Black weight is even heavier than Intertype’s Futura Extra Bold.

For Volume 2, which followed half a year later, he didn’t rehash the design, but came up with a variation: this time the titling face is Filmotype Gem, an extrabold sans with straight-sided rounds. The track list is shown to the left and right of Martin’s portrait, set in Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed.

What unites the two cover designs are the photographic portraits of smiling Dean Martin with his signature bow tie, the color palette with red white and blue, and a typography that uses two sans serifs in all caps.

Vol. 2, Aug. 1968 [More info on Discogs]

September of My Years is a 1965 album from vocalist Frank Sinatra, released on Reprise Records.

On both the front and back cover, the artist name and title are set in Post Condensed. The arranger and conductor credit and song titles on the front cover are set in News Gothic, as are the track listing (featuring the Condensed), credits, and Stan Cornyn’s liner notes on the back cover. The “Stereo” text on the front cover is Hellenic Wide. Art direction by Ed Thrasher, with an illustration by George Bartell.

[More info on Discogs]

Poster design by P+A / Showtime Creative

Yellowjackets is an American thriller drama about high school girls’ soccer players who try to survive after their plane crashes in the northern wilderness. The series premiered on Showtime on November 14, 2021.

The font used for the logo is Corner Store JF with some manual edits, including elongated descenders in j and Y, the latter forming an underscore. Corner Store is a handwriting font with strong vintage vibe, made by American artist and typeface designer Jason Walcott. It was released in 2007 by Jukebox Type.

The accompanying sans serifs are Showtime’s standard brand typefaces, Atyp and Antique Legacy.

Poster design by AV Print / Showtime Creative

Poster design by ARSONAL / Showtime Creative

Ahmad Jamal at the Blackhawk features live recordings of jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal, performing at The Blackhawk, San Francisco. The album was released in 1962 by Argo, a jazz-focused sublabel of Chess Records. The album title is set in Stop.

Ahmad Jamal— jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, and educator — died this week, aged 92.

[More info on Discogs]

Julia Fletcher designed three recent show posters for the band Sextile that feature three fonts from my Megafonts series, Megazoid, Megascope, and Megavolt.

In the San Francisco poster, Acumin, Benny One (Castcraft’s copy of Stan Control), Hellenic Wide, and Automania make appearances in supporting text. She also gave Megazoid a colorful bevel that I would love to add to the typeface itself. (Fletcher has previously customized Megazoid to great effect.)

The more recent New York poster deploys Acumin and Automania as well, adding a bit of Fake Receipt for good measure. The Brooklyn poster from 2022 uses Benny One, Automania, and Berlin Bold.

I appreciate that Fletcher is unafraid to stretch type, and manages to do it in a way that feels of a piece with the warping and stretching of two-dimensional space that is happening in the layouts.

Source: www.amazon.com License: All Rights Reserved.

From Wikipedia:

The Shadow of Your Smile is the debut album by the American alternative rock band Friends of Dean Martinez, released in 1995. The band included members of two Arizona bands: Joey Burns and John Convertino, of Giant Sand, and Bill Elm, Tom Larkins, and Van Christian, of Naked Prey. The band changed their name from Friends of Dean Martin right before the album's release, after threat of legal action by Martin’s representatives.

The album was considered part of the mid-1990s “Cocktail Nation” trend of instrumental surf and lounge music.

The cover typography brings together two extrawide typefaces that support the cinematic feel. While the band name is set in an early digitization of Hellenic Wide, a classic Western “railroad slab”, the album title appears to use Horizontal. This modernist grotesk with similarities to Microgramma was designed by Max Miedinger of Helvetica fame. It was later digitized as Miedinger (Canada Type, 2007).

[More info on Discogs]

Source: www.discogs.com License: All Rights Reserved.

The track list is set in Hellenic Wide, too.

Source: www.discogs.com License: All Rights Reserved.

The typeface used for the credits is yet unidentified.

Big wood plank letters in the sky: Norton Slapstick, together with Flash Bold, on the cover of “an evening of Western hits”, released by Valiant Records around the early 1960s.

Originally drawn by S.E. Norton between the late 1940s and early 50s, Slapstick was digitized by Erik van Blokland in 2011.

[More info on Discogs]

Manifold Extended CF for the Lumon Industries logo in concrete

Manifold Extended CF is recurringly used in the TV series Severance. Created by Dan Erickson and directed by Ben Stiller and Aoife McArdle, it premiered on Apple TV+ on February 18, 2022. From Wikipedia:

A sinister technology corporation, Lumon Industries, uses a “severance” medical procedure to separate the non-work memories of some of their employees from their work memories. One severed employee, Mark, gradually uncovers a web of conspiracy from both sides of the division.

Manifold Extended CF is used as the Lumon corporate logo, for signs and wayfinding. It has miscellaneous appearances in the show, social media, and website. It’s often paired with Forma DJR as part of Lumon Industries’ corporate design.

The fan site Severance Wiki has an extensive page about the typography in the show. Many of the images reproduced here come from that site.

Manifold Extended CF with Neue Helvetica for “Input Survey Preamble”

Manifold Extended CF for the wax figure name plaques

Manifold Extended CF for signs at Lumon HQ

Manifold Extended CF for signs at Lumon HQ

Manifold Extended CF for a menu

Forma DJR on the Security Office Protocol Quick Start Guide

Forma DJR for an apology note given to an “outie” after they sustained an injury while on the SVR’D floor

Forma DJR on the Senior Refiner Morning Checklist

Input Sans is used for the text of the Compunction Statement, seen during Helly R.’s visit to the Break Room.

All-caps Input Sans, mirrored

Optima appears on the spines of the Compliance Handbook volumes kept beneath the Kier Eagan portrait in the Macrodata Refinement department.

Scriptorama Tradeshow JF is used on the “Lumon Recycles!” recycling bin that appears in the “Good News About Hell” episode.

Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios) is the second studio album by Colombian-American singer Kali Uchis. Nautica is featured for the album title. The secondary typeface is Hellenic Wide. While the photography is by Jora Frantzis, the cover designer is not credited.

[More info on Discogs]

Both "The Happy Cereal!" and "The Happy Snack!" use Hellenic Wide with the remainder of the text using Venus Extended Medium.

Singer Presents Don Ho And The Aliis, released with Reprise Records in 1968 as part of sewing machine manufacturer Singer’s endorsement with Don Ho’s NBC TV special: “Singer Presents Hawaii-Ho, Starring Don Ho”.

Hawaiian singer, crooner, entertainer Donald Tai Loy Ho (1930–2007) made a name as “The Hawaiian Elvis” and reached the top-ten of the Billboard charts the year before this release with his biggest hit song, “Tiny Bubbles”.

The cover typography features Alternate Gothic for the English and Hawaiian track names, and a version of Thorowgood Sans Shaded – probably redrawn with tightened spacing and added stripes – for Don Ho’s name. The Singer logo is custom. Among digitally available fonts, OL Signpainter Titling would come close. “Presents” is a relatively early use of Friz Quadrata, and the “Stereo” logo uses Hellenic Wide.

[More info on Discogs]