Byte magazine, issue #4, December 1975

Bill Godbout was something of a pioneer in the early microcomputer movement of the 1970s, and his firm Bill Godbout Electronics was a commercial vehicle selling discount and surplus electronics and microcomputer components. Bill Godbout Electronics was a regular advertiser in the early issues of the seminal BYTE magazine. Issue #4 is the first Christmas issue and features a 2-pager from Bill Godbout Electronics that mixes a large number of fonts in a style typical of both this era and this advertiser.

“Bill Godbout Electronics” is in Wexford. I think the “CAVE grafix” is lettering, but the first word may be based on Koloss (see further below). “Wish you a joyous holiday season” and so in is in Davida. “If you are into toyful tinkering” and so on is in outlined Cooper Black.

“Son-of-a Cheap Clock” is in Tonight, and above it “We have a successor to our very popular ‘Cheap Clock Kit’!” is in Script (for the IBM Selectric; see also the body fonts, glossed below). The price, $14.50, is in Umbra. Both Script and Umbra are used on the following page.

Windsor is used for “they also make great gifts” (on the curve) and the following text. “Electronic Projects for Musicians” is Reklameschrift Herold. Below the decorative band, “EROM board special offer” is in Helvetica, outlined and with a South shadow.

“4K x 8 pre-programmed for 8080” is in an outline style of a somewhat Microgramma-like font that I couldn’t identify that is also used on the second page.

On the second page, “Bigger & Better” is in Skin & Bones (using two alternates for G, but not for E). “Pace 16 bit chip set” is in Koloss. “1 Pace 16 bit CPU” and other text on and under the curve is the previously mentioned and unidentified outline Microgramma-lookalike.

“Pace Data Packet” is Advertisers Gothic (using the A without a top flag). “4K x 8 RAM kit” is in Umbra. “EROM board kit” is in Rock Opera. The “8K x 8” and so on again is in Wexford. “There’s more ... We have” is in Monogram.

The body text (and some secondary and subtitle text) is typewritten in a variety of fonts, and I did a much better job of identifying those, all available on the IBM Selectric:

On the first page the text for the clock, starting “BIGGER DIGITS” is in Artisan. “By Craig Anderton” (the author of “Electronic Projects for Musicians”) is in Orator (probably, in any case Orator is used on the next page).

The text for the Craig Anderton blurb is Adjutant, I think. Delegate and Adjutant are very similar with only slight differences in weight and thick/thin contrast, but they have different pitches: Adjutant is 12 characters per inch, and is tighter than Delegate at 10. The text block at the bottom of the first page, starting “By special arrangement”, is in Bookface Academic.

On the second page, below “Pace 16 bit”, the text starting “This chip set gets you into PACE” is in Manifold. The word “PACE” itself is in another font (the Selectric had a feature where you could switch type-balls and still retain the cursor position), possibly Pica. Manifold is again used for the bottom paragraph starting “READOUTS, LEDS, TRANSISTORS”. Below “Pace Data Packet”, “Since we started advertising” is Orator. Below “4K x 8 RAM”, “Note the lower price” looks like Prestige Elite.

Below “EROM BOARD”, the text starting “Now you can stuff up to 8K” initially had me stumped, but I think I have tracked it down. The small caps in place of little letters, made me think of Orator, which it isn’t; the o is distinctly squaroid and reminded me of the output of the IBM lineprinters, such as the 1403. It turns out that the IBM Selectric has a typeball called AN3/360 which the 1972 brochure specifically says matches the AN3 style available on IBM’s lineprinters.

At the bottom of the second page, to the right of the wordmark, the payment and terms text starting “YOU MAY PLACE MASTERCHARGE® OR BANKAMERICARD® ORDERS” is in Script.

Source: guinamedici.blogspot.com Aguinaldo Medici Severino (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

In Nederland (“In the Netherlands”) is a novel by Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom.

A morose provincial inspector of roads in Aragon settles down to write the fable of the Snow Queen. The Netherlands has now been stretched into a vast country with Northern flatlands and hazardous Alpine ranges in the south. Kai and Lucia are circus illusionists, and when Kai is kidnapped, Lucia must rescue him from the Snow Queen’s palace. In the Dutch Mountains is an elegantly constructed story within a story, laced with the wit that characterises the work of this outstanding European writer.

First published in Dutch by De Arbeiderspers in 1984, it was translated to the English by Adrienne Dixon (1932–1990) and published by Louisiana State University Press in 1987, under the title In the Dutch Mountains. Shown here is the cover of Penguin’s paperback edition from 1991, with cover art by David Davies. The design is by Melissa Jacoby.

For title and author’s name, she chose a typeface that was released around 1932 – shortly before Nooteboom was born (1933): it’s Schwung-Adastra, an extension of Adastra (1928) with swash caps. The inclined inline face was cut by August Rosenberger at the Stempel foundry in Frankfurt, after designs by Herbert Thannhaeuser. Outside Germany, Adastra was also known as Royal.

Cees Nooteboom died 11 February 2026 at the age of 92. RIP.

SCELBI Computer Consulting, Inc., was (briefly and significantly) a 1970s microcomputer manufacturer but was mostly known in that era for its technical publications. The cover work for some of the early books features plenty of fun with photo lettering. The company name was often rendered in Koloss, as it is here. Helvetica is the baseline text choice, and Avant Garde Gothic with multiple ligatures is used for the title.

The Galaxy game was a space conquest adventure, in the vein of the classic Star Trek games from early computing. The books (available for the Intel 8008/8080 systems as well as the Motorola 6800) contained the whole game, reproduced as machine language code with explanations for both gameplay and how the program worked.

SCELBAL was a version of BASIC for SCELBI’s own computer system, and the title of its book is set in Baby Arbuckle, a follower of Baby Fat.

The company’s First Book of Computer Games is less aesthetically coherent. It repeats the Helvetica and Koloss, then throws Neil Bold, Pioneer, and Dubbeldik into the mix.

More on the SCELBI computer in the context of early micro computing can be found here, while a number of SCELBI’s books are available at the SCELBI Museum and the Internet Archive.

An advert for advertising; and one that links together three important names in the history of UK advertising as well as contemporary German design. It appears in the April 1928 issue of the noted German graphic design magazine Gebrauchsgrafik and was issued by the Berlin office of the noted London based advertising agency of W.S. Crawford. The company was founded by William Crawford in 1914 and for much of its existence was based in High Holborn; its later HQ building with a striking stainless steel facade survives close to Holborn Tube Station. During the 1920s and ’30s they maintained an office in Berlin and this speaks of the ready acceptance of continental practises and movements, such as the Bauhaus, on Crawford’s approach to business for their clients.

One of the names most associated with the company at this time, and for the next two decades, was that of Ashley Havinden who had joined as a trainee in 1922 and who by 1929 was artistic director. Interestingly, the lettering in this advert slightly echoes lettering designed by Havinden for the important client of Chrysler Cars and that was later issued by Monotype as a commercial typeface. It appears that here the German typeface Neuland, by Rudolf Koch and first issued in 1923, is used. Crawford’s were using the typeface in adverts from c.1927.

The advert itself is by Edward McKnight Kauffer who by this date was one of the most successful designers and artists at work in advertising. American born but since WW1 based in London, McKnight Kauffer’s early break had come with commissions for Frank Pick at the London Underground Group and he became one of the more influential ‘advertising artists’ in the 1920s and ’30s. This advert, in German, is very similar in style to a series of contemporary Crawford’s adverts in British advertising journals.

The main text, roughly translated, reads:

The Stronghold of Advertising. Hard. Crawford works hard in Berlin. Thinking. Planning. Drawing. Writing. Creating tirelessly. And chimneys smoke day and night. In the Ruhr area. In Upper Silesia. Sirens roar through the ports. Swing wheels churn. Hammers bang. And drills screech day and night. In the factories. Reconstruction! Reconstruction!! They all help. They all create. For Germany’s prosperity.

It is interesting to see this take on the period when Germany's industries and its economy in genral, were desperately attempting to revitalise in the era of post-war calamity, reperations and political instability.

The main title is “The Stronghold of Advertising”. The graphics suggest industry, coke ovens or blast furnaces, against a background of towering chimneys in smoky shades of black and grey.

It’s Not Up to Us is the debut album by Pennsylvanian saxophonist/flautist Byard Lancaster (1942–2012). Recorded in 1966, it came out in 1968 as one of the first releases by Vortex, a sublabel of Atlantic Records dedicated to jazz.

Artwork by Marvin Israel, with photography by Michael Wilderman. The title typeface is Photo-Lettering’s Halloween. Read more about its origins in last year’s post.

[More info on Discogs]

On the back, the religious statement by Lancaster is set in all-caps Lightline Gothic. “Stereo 2003” uses Neuland licht, and the track list and credits are in Helvetica. The Vortex logo (not part of this design) features Futura Black.

Source: gallica.bnf.fr License: All Rights Reserved.

Issue 6, April 25, 1928

French weekly magazine Vu was the brainchild of Lucien Vogel (1886–1954). It was first published on March 21, 1928, with a logo designed by Cassandre. 637 more issues followed until May 29, 1940. Vu is best known for pioneering photojournalism, featuring works by contributing photographers such as Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, Brassaï, Robert Capa, and André Kertész.

From the very start, it included a section titled “Les distractions de la semaine” (“The week’s distractions”) with various puzzles, or problèmes. Initially, the crosswords came with handwritten numbers, see this example from issue 5. In the sixth issue from April 25, 1928, Vu introduced solutions for the crosswords. These no longer used lettering. Instead, they were composed from a special font. Simply named Mots Croisés (French for “crosswords”), it offered blank and black squares as well as such with capital letters for clues and solutions, internal and external numbers, and border elements. Mots Croisés is shown in Deberny & Peignot’s Spécimen Générale from around 1936.

Last month, Poem released Phông, a digital typeface inspired by crossword puzzles. It was created by Khải Quang Nguyễn during his research residency at Atelier National de Recherche Typographique. While his primary inspiration were the puzzles in Phong-Hóa, a Vietnamese satirical journal first published in 1932, he also looked into Vu – which led me to Mots Croisés. Cảm ơn, Khải!

Source: gallica.bnf.fr License: All Rights Reserved.

Detail from issue 21, August 8, 1928

The other fonts in use for “Les distractions de la semaine” are worth a look, too. While the dancing fat face with the checkered fill used for the title is lettering, the thin caps for “Résultats” in the first image are typographic: they come from the generically named Antique Fine. The puzzles themselves are set in Beaudoire’s Elzevir, which started about 1860 as a commercial copy of Louis Perrin’s Caract. Headings are in the accompanying Elzevir Gras, which has more in common with Alexander Phemister’s Old Style Antique No. 7.

Source: gallica.bnf.fr License: All Rights Reserved.

Issue 21, August 8, 1928

The bold italic caps used for the solution du problème № 37 (above) are from Sphinx italique. One of the sans serifs seen in issue 249 from March 1933 (below) is Consul, which was available from several French foundries, including from Peignot & Fils as Antiques maigres larges.

Source: typedrawers.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Detail from issue 259, March 1, 1933

Cover for the August 1930 issue of the Süddeutsche Monatshefte, which at the time was not published monthly, but quarterly. The bold high-contrast sans at the top and bottom is Jakob Erbar’s Koloss. The focus of the issue,  “Ungarn” (“Hungary”), is presented in lively lettering, rendered as if it was following a TypeCooker recipe for “construction: roman / weight: bold /contrast amount: a lot / stroke endings: serifs / width: condensed / contrast type: expansion”. Below, contents are listed in italic and roman styles of Normande.

From Paul Hoser’s entry in nsdoku.lexikon, published January 16, 2025, by NS-Dokumentationszentrum München (translated):

The Süddeutsche Monatshefte was founded in Munich in 1904. The editor was Paul Nikolaus Cossmann, who moved more and more in a nationalist direction, and during the First World War he succeeded in forcing the democratic shareholders out of the publishing house and replacing them with extreme nationalists. After the collapse, he also had Weimar democracy disparaged. Above all, he fought against the Treaty of Versailles and the “war guilt lie”, i.e. the Versailles Treaty's stipulation that Germany alone was to blame for the outbreak of war. […] Despite its nationalist tendencies, the magazine was critical of the National Socialists. It hoped for the restoration of the Wittelsbach monarchy: Significantly, the January 1933 issue was entitled “König Rupprecht”. The magazine was discontinued in 1936. Cossmann died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942.

S01E01, “The National Anthem”. The title lettering is a little similar to Eagle.

In 2016, Brazilian artist Bily Mariano da Luz, better known as Butcher Billy, started creating covers for fictive comic books inspired by the British TV series Black Mirror. From his Behance page:

What if, in an alternate universe, the cult tv show Black Mirror had been inspired by a series of old school comic books from the 70’s? Horror, suspense, crime, romance… anything goes.

He posted these covers to his Tumblr. “Once series creator Charlie Brooker discovered the images through Twitter, Billy was eventually hired to do artwork featured in the episodes themselves.” — Wikipedia

The lettering appears to be drawn by hand, but at least some of it is based on typefaces. The “Black Mirror” title is patterned after Koloss.

There’s also a related series for the fourth season, which is not shown here. Titled Tales from the Black Mirrors, it adds elements from Tales of the Unexpected.

S01E3, “The Entire History of You”. The title appears to be based on Samdan (or maybe Danzig 4P) which in turn is inspired by the band logos of Samhain and Danzig.

S02E03, “The Waldo Moment” ft. a wide grotesque

S03E04, “San Junipero”, with the title featuring Mastoc. “Heaven is a place on earth” is based on Cooper Black Italic.

S03E05, “Men Against Fire”. The title is based on the lettering from the poster for Full Metal Jacket. Compare to Zarana and Checkmate.

The title sequence used in Gaspar Noé’s Cannes-selected movie Enter the Void has amazed me over the years in terms of typography and graphic design, and thanks to a friend of mine, Puz, (some of) these fonts have been identified.

It was created by Tom Kan, a Japanese designer based in Paris. From Ian Albinson’s interview with Kan for Art of the Title:

The sequence is a typographer’s wet dream (or alternatively their nightmare). How were the various fonts and characters chosen?

The choice of typefaces came rather naturally. After coming up with a large selection in line with the film’s mood, we simply chose the ones that best suited the characters and the personalities of those in the team. Gaspar wanted each title to reflect the person it concerned. It was a beautiful homage and proof of his respect for the members of the team — a way to thank them.

Many typefaces and designs did not get used because the time limit was set — the sound mix was already done and it was impossible to extend. I think we used only 60% of the designs, all in all.

Every typeface used in the sequence seems to be a reference to other famous film title or poster fonts. What was the typeface you selected for your own credit and why?

We appropriated different typefaces, but we never wanted to copy the titles from other films in an obvious way since I thought that would be misleading. For my own credit, I went in many different directions: aged typefaces in metal, Kanji and Japanese calligraphy, techno typography… In the end, I let Gaspar choose and he went with the biggest, most legible type!

Watch the title sequence on YouTube, or right below (epilepsy/flashing lights warning):

Futura Extra Bold Condensed in all caps is the primary typeface for the credits. Here it’s used in combination with Kozuka Gothic for Japanese, alongside some logos.

Music credits include Egyptienne Medium Condensed, Garamond, Eurostile, Bodoni Condensed, Neue Helvetica 93, Futura, and Helvetica Condensed. It’s unclear if the LFO logo uses a font (Disco Deck is similar) or whether it’s custom drawn.

In addition to Futura Extra Bold Condensed, the logos of the production and distribution companies feature Euphoric (Wild Bunch) and Futura Extra Bold (Fidelité).

Producer credits feature FB Agency, Kozuka Gothic, ITC Machine, Futura Display, stretched and slanted Woodblock, and Antique Olive Nord

The names of the co-producers are set in Egyptienne Medium Condensed, Univers Ultra Condensed, Futura, an unidentified font similar to Crown Title, two unidentified stencil(ed) fonts, and Trajan.

More Egyptienne Medium Condensed for Suzanne Girard

Manager credits feature Haettenschweiler, Council, Neue Helvetica Extended (?), Clarendon, Pump Triline, Fiorello, Eurostile, Thorowgood Sans Shaded, and Futura Condensed.

The name of location manager Masahiro Hondo in Glaser Stencil serves as a mask.

Bank Gothic with rainbow glow effect for Lucio Tomaro

Photography credits with slanted Bank Gothic (Benoît Debie), bold italic City with added and extended top and baseline serifs (Gaspar Noé), TFAvian (Akira Kanno), outlined Futura (Yasushi Miyata), Bell Gothic (Jacques Bernier), and Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed (Yves Le Peillet)

Art credits featuring an unidentified blocky unicase face with 3D bevel effect similar to Mark (Marc Caro), FF Vortex (Kikuo Ohta), another unidentified blocky sans (Jean Carrière), and Zeppelin (Nicoletta Massone)

The dripping letters for Tony Crosbie appear to be custom(ized) – Shlop is a similar ready-made font.

Sound and editor credits with Eurostile (Ken Yasumoto), stretched Ironwood (Ryotaro Harada), contoured Nasalization (Claude Lahaye), an upright LCD typeface, probably Digital (Thomas Bangalter), a heavily modified Sonic or another font inspired by the Star Trek TNG logo (Lars Ginzel), Galledis with hyperextended lines (Gaspar Noé), modified SF Archery Black (Marc Boucrot), Zaius, a typeface family emulating the Planet of the Apes movie series logo (Jerome Pesnel), and ITC Machine (Pierre Buffin).

The fonts used for these cards include an unidentified inline face similar to Rubaiyat and Gothicum (Geoffroy Niquet), SF Archery Black (Yann de Cadoudal), OCR-A (Nicolas Delval), Mexcellent (Xavier Allard), fractured caps from a bold sans, possibly Compacta Black (Julien Aullas), Synchro (Bastien Laurent), Helvetica Rounded Bold Condensed (Anne-Sophie Bertrand), and an unidentified squarish sans similar to SB Carbon, Resistance Is Lowered or Apollo Rocket (Loris Paillier).

City Bold, slanted, with double contour and extended baseline serifs, for Tom Kan, Director of Typography

Gaspar Noé in outlined caps from Futura Extra Bold Condensed, without accent on the E

The blackletter typeface chosen for Lucile Hadžihalilović is Linotext (or Mariage, Wedding Text) with some modifications: e and c got bottom serifs and the swash in v was moved from the left to the right stem,

Paz de la Huerta gets various typographic treatments, including Eagle (in a weight between Bold and Black), Futura Dot with Citadel Script, outlined Egyptienne Bold Extended, and ITC Neon.

The Japanese transcription of Paz dela Huerta’s name (パス・デ・ラ・ウエルタ) appears to be Hiragino Maru Gothic or similar, with added contour.

Nathaniel Brown’s name is shown in Pump, ITC Bolt, Aachen, West Barnum Block filled with stars and stripes, and ITC Lubalin Graph Demi.

The fonts chosen for Cyril Roy include Aachen, American Text, Monotype Garamond, and at least two Japanese ones.

The MICR-inspired face used for Olly Alexander is handmade, as confirmed byo Tom Kan. Other fonts include Compacta and all-caps ITC Bolt.

The fonts used for Masato Tanno are Akzidenz-Grotesk Stencil and Ainsdale. The others are yet unidentified.

Gothicum and a (custom?) stencil version of Aachen for Ed Spear, Helvetica Rounded and Neue Helvetica 95 for Emily Alyn Lind, more Helvetica Rounded, an unidentified Japanese font, and Eagle for Jesse Kuhn and Nobu Imai

More ITC Neon and Helvetica Rounded for Sakiko Fukuhara. The bitmap font is 04b_08.

Sarah Stockbridge is set in Haettenschweiler with hyper-extended glyphs).

The names of Janice Sicotte-Beliveau and Stuart Miller are shown in Cooper Black, Impact Wide, Monterey and ITC Officina Serif, Braggadocio, Fiedler Gothic, and Blackoak.

Yemi Carol is presented in Impact Wide, Helvetica Rounded, and a Japanese Maru Gothic. The font shown at the bottom right is unidentified.

Several of the fonts used for Gaspar Noé’s name are yet unidentified. This includes alll fonts in the top row and the left one in the second row, which is similar to Moore Computer and Data 70. Other fonts include ITC Lubalin Graph, Futura Extra Bold Condensed, and Eagle.

Nr. 22, Donald auf großer Fahrt (Walt Disney Productions, 1972; Ehapa-Verlag, 1981) ft. Zipper

Walt Disneys Lustige Taschenbücher is a long-running series of German comic books with stories about Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. The paperback-sized books were first published by Ehapa-Verlag in 1967 and mostly feature translations of comics produced in Italy and Scandinavia. You can see all issues including the latest one – no. 586! – on the dedicated website.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Lustige Taschenbücher often used typefaces by Letraset for the cover designs. The series title itself is set in caps from Twentieth Century Ultrabold, which was carried by Letraset under the misnomer Futura Extra Bold. See the captions for the typefaces used on the individual covers.

Nr. 49, Ohne Fleiß kein Preis! (Walt Disney Productions, 1977; Ehapa-Verlag, 1981) ft. Octopuss

Nr. 51, Kopf hoch, Donald! (Walt Disney Productions, 1977; Ehapa-Verlag, 1981) ft. Koloss

Nr. 53, Dagobert, der Milliardenakrobat (Walt Disney Productions, 1978; Ehapa-Verlag, 1978) ft. Candice

Nr. 55, Dagobert macht Geschichten (Walt Disney Productions, 1978; Ehapa-Verlag, 1978) ft. Odin

Bryson contributed a post about the first British edition of Hot Jazz, which has a book jacket that exclusively features typefaces by Rudolf Koch. I thought I’ll add the first U.S. edition by M. Witmark & Sons, too.

The American dust jacket features another typeface design by Koch. This time it’s Neuland (1923), a coarse all-caps design for which Koch manually cut the punches, resulting in small (and not so small) differences across the ten sizes.

Thanks to Edvinas Žukauskas and Jérôme Knebusch who digitized all individual sizes for their Koch-Grotesk revival (2023), it’s easy to determine the sizes the uncredited jacket designer employed. The main title and the publisher’s name use the 20pt (“Text”) size, and the subtitle, the author’s name and the location are derived from the 12pt “Cicero” size. The two lines in the 20pt design are shown in different sizes – that’s because they were scaled photographically. Identifying the sizes also tells us that the fonts used are the original ones imported from Klingspor: the domestic copy by Baltotype was cut pantographically based on the 28pt design, and thus is identical from one size to another.

The other typeface used for the synopsis and the spine is equally bold, but has nothing to do with Koch whatsoever. It’s Cooper Black.

Front and spine of the book jacket

The book cover combines Lichte Erbar-Versalien a.k.a. Monastic with an italic Caslon – possibly English Caslon Oldstyle.

The title page repeats the cover typography and adds text in another Caslon, in italics and roman caps.

While the chapter numbers use numerals from the aforementioned Lichte Erbar-Versalien, the initials are from another open face: it’s Caslon Openface.

Body text isn’t composed in Caslon, but in a Baskerville – namely the Linotype version.

Rudolf Koch’s Neuland (1923) in use on the cover of a pamphlet by Herbert Aptheker (1915–2003), an American Marxist historian and political activist, published by New Century Publishers, New York, 1959.

Lords of the Earth is the title of Jules Loh’s history of the Navajo, published in 1971 by Crowell-Collier Press with a foreword by Peter MacDonald, Chairman or the Navajo Tribal Council.

For the jacket design, Walter Harper combined stacked and interlocked Trooper Roman with equally tight-spaced caps from News Gothic and a photograph of Tsé Bii’Ndzisgaii – Monument Valley. The interior design is uncredited. It uses Neuland licht with Futura Light for the title page and chapter beginnings. The text typeface is Rudolph Ruzicka’s Primer.

“The home-made illustration and the handling of the words “Christmas” and “Greetings” to suggest starbeams feature this card by Emil Georg Sahlin, Buffalo”

Lichte Neuland, or Neuland Inline, was first cast by the Klingspor foundry in Offenbach, Germany, in 1928. Here it can be seen in early use for the 1929 Christmas card by Julia & Emil Georg Sahlin. The card was reproduced in the February 1930 issue of the Inland Printer. It was originally printed in color.

Emil Georg Sahlin was born on April 22, 1895, in Lund, Sweden, and emigrated to the United States. He worked at the Roycroft Print Shop in East Aurora, New York, together with his older brother Axel Edward Sahlin (1877–1956). The two brothers later were employed as compositors at the Aries Press in Eden, New York. In 1928, Emil left Aries to join Alex in the first typographic service in Buffalo and also continued his own venture, the Paradise Press, which he operated until his death in April 1983.

For a long time, URW Nueland was the only digital interpretation of Rudolf Koch’s design to include the Inline style. In December 2023, Poem published Koch Lichte Grotesk for this year’s centenary of Neuland. Designed by Edvinas Žukauskas and Jérôme Knebusch, it’s an accurate revival of the original 12 pt Cicero size.

Book jacket with banderole

Why was Marsden killed twice?

First edition of a detective novel featuring Scotland Yard's Inspector Slade, penned by Leonard Gribble (1908–1985). The book was published by Doubleday, Doran and Co. for the Crime Club in 1930.

Neuland was first cast by the Gebr. Klingspor foundry in Offenbach, Germany, in 1923. Rudolf Koch’s rugged sans was a major hit with American book designers. Especially in the 1930s, its coarse letterforms appeared on numerous jacket designs. The designers didn’t always use Neuland directly. For one, being an overseas product, it was not exactly straightforward to obtain. Domestic foundries like Baltotype and Chicago cut copies, but my understanding is that that happened only later. In 1930, one had to place an order with the Continental Typefounders Association. Secondly, it was quicker and cheaper to simply render the letterforms by hand. After all, Neuland was advertised as a “hand cut design”, and, with its straight lines and integral inconsistencies, was easier to mimick than most other type styles.

The jacket for the Crime Club mystery is a case in point. All text surrounding the blood-red hand is manually drawn. It’s clear that Neuland was the direct inspiration, as one can see in the open C, the narrow S, the stemmed U, the diagonal terminals and other details. For the question at the bottom left, the unknown designer (who signed the work with “E”) invented matching lowercase letters.

Neuland was caps-only. Koch did start work on a lowercase, though. This version was never released by Klingspor. Only this year, Edvinas Žukauskas and Jérôme Knebusch included it in their Koch Grotesk, a faithful digital revival of all size-specific cuts of the original Neuland. Koch Grotesk was released by Poem in May 2023, just in time for the typeface’s centennial, together with a pamphlet featuring an essay by Dan Reynolds. Later today, at 4pm CET, Reynolds, Žukauskas and Knebusch will give a lecture at ENSAD Nancy, France. “Making/Remaking Neuland” will be livestreamed.

Not into lettering derived from typefaces? Fair enough. There are real fonts in this use, too: the green banderole features three typefaces, all of which were new at the time. The Bodoni on the spine part appears to be Monotype #375 from 1930. The fat style used for the title is Ultra Bodoni from 1928, both (adaptations of works) by Morris F. Benton. The geometric sans-serif caps look like they’re from Grobe Kabel (1928), another design by Koch. Considering the location and the fact that the other fonts are from Monotype, it may also be Monotype’s generically named copy, Sans Serif Bold (1930).

Front and spine portions of jacket

The title on the front cover is set in caps from Futura Bold, which was first cast two years before, in 1928.

Detail of the banderole with the Crime Club gunman at the right

Front cover and spine to the Monster Series book on Frankenstein

Covers for the Monster Series from Crestwood House, a collection of 15 books published from 1977 mostly based on the monsters seen in the Universal Pictures films from the 1930s to the 1950s. The character titles for each book cover are set in an orange Neuland with white shadow or outline, sometimes on a curve or angle. The Monster Series logo/label uses Roberta. The back cover of each book aptly features the word “Monsters” set in Photo-Lettering's Monster, “from” set in an italic Times, and the Crestwood House publishers mark which appears to be based on Davida, albeit of lighter weight and more condensed proportions. The last page of each book also features a suggestion from King Kong set in Windsor. The spines and interior pages feature the author's name/s and text set in Optima.

Crestwood House is an imprint of the Macmillan Publishing Company.

Design is credited to Doris Woods, Randal M. Heise, Tammy Loe, and Baker Street Productions, Ltd.

Front covers to all 15 books in the Monster Series from Crestwood House

Last page of each book, featuring a suggestion from King Kong set in Windsor

Back cover, featuring PLINC's Monster

Gate of Ivrel with a blurb by Andre Norton [More info on ISFDB]

The Morgaine Stories are a series of fantasy novels by C.J. Cherryh. They tell the saga of Morgaine, a time-traveling heroine, and Nhi Vanye i Chya, her loyal warrior companion. According to Wikipedia, Cherryh “used only her initials [for Carolyn Janice ], to disguise that she was female at a time when the majority of science fiction authors were male.”

The first three books were published by DAW Books in 1976 (Gate of Ivrel), 1978 (Well of Shiuan) and 1979 (Fires of Azeroth). These cover designs probably date from around 1988, when the fourth novel, Exile’s Gate, came out. They feature the cover art by Michael Whelan that already was used for the first editions.

The reason they’re shown here is because the series represents a prominent use of the relatively obscure Sphinx éclaire. This capital typeface is an inline version of Sphinx, originally issued by French foundry Deberny & Peignot in 1925. Sphinx éclaire here is used in bichromatic settings with EndcapS, and supported by ITC Benguiat.

Well of Shiuan [More info on ISFDB]

Fires of Azeroth [More info on ISFDB]

Exile’s Gate [More info on ISFDB]

An early Greatest Hits compilation by The Coasters, a rhythm and blues/rock and roll vocal group formed in 1955, released on ATCO Records in 1959.

The cover design is by Marvin Israel, at the time art director for Atlantic Records. He worked with a photograph by Garrett-Howard and a typeface named Sphinx éclaire. This all-caps open/inline style accompanied Sphinx, a Fat Face first cast by Deberny & Peignot in 1925. The version used here likely is Photo-Lettering’s adaptation, Sphinx Inline, made before 1950. The design was digitized by Steve Jackaman as Sphinx RR Inline (Red Rooster, 1992), adding a lowercase. Doug Olena is credited with another revival (Keystrokes, 1992), adding a Condensed Inline style.

[More info on Discogs]

The Royal Scam is the fifth album from American rock band Steely Dan, released on ABC Records in 1976.

The artist and album title are set in all-caps Koloss, with an added shadow effect. On the back cover, the track listing and credits appear in all-caps Optima.

From Wikipedia:

The album's cover features an image of a man in a suit sleeping on a bus stop bench in Boston and dreaming of skyscrapers with monstrous animal heads at the top. [Larry] Zox originally created the painting of the skyscraper/beast hybrids for an unreleased Van Morrison album, and designer Ed Caraeff suggested superimposing a photograph of a sleeping vagrant taken by Charlie Ganse to make the cover for The Royal Scam. In the liner notes for the 1999 remastered reissue of the album, Fagen and Becker called it has “the most hideous album cover of the seventies, bar none (excepting perhaps Can’t Buy a Thrill).”

Tom Nikosey is credited with the typographic design.

[More info at Discogs]

The back cover

The “Phone Thing” by Bell System is a time schedule assembled from two sliding cardboard wheels, to help estimate long distance charges based on mileage and to determine when the cheapest phone rates were. According to the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, it was produced by FlexiGroup Inc. in 1977. The magazine advert shown above is from 1979.

Do you know when you can save 35%, or even 60%, on out-of-state phone calls? “Phone Thing” has all the answers when it comes to saving money on direct-dial calls. Just put it all together, check “Phone Thing” before you make your next call, and start saving every time you reach out and touch someone.

The TCI Library has a similar ad from 1977, with a male model, see below. The ads came accompanied by an insert with a copy of the “Phone Thing”, to be assembled by the reader.

The display typeface for both the ad and the insert is Jakob Erbar’s Koloss. The copy in the former is set in Plantin Bold and Italic. The instructions and the labels on the wheels are set in various styles of Eurostile, including some infrequently seen condensed weights.