“Home To You”, 2019.

Last year’s Reward album and single covers by Welsh musician Cate Le Bon represent a nice contemporary use of Milton Glaser’s Baby Teeth. With its monumental and geometrical modernist shapes, it complements well the very graphic set of photographs and forms displayed on each cover. The design has been made by Huw Gwynfryn Evans a.k.a. H. Hawkline, a Welsh visual artist and musician who also plays on the record, and who happens to have created the art for many noteworthy albums these past years. Among them, evidently other Le Bon’s albums, Aldous Harding’s Designer, Kevin Morby’s Harlem River (with Tim Presley) and of course, his own records.

[More info on Discogs]

“Daylight Matters”, 2019.

“The Light”.

Reward LP.

Reward LP.

The North American album art for Light as a Feather uses Wexford in its Bold and Medium weights.

A jazz fusion album by legendary keyboardist Chick Corea and his band Return to Forever, particularly notable for its star final track, "Spain". The album art uses two funky weights of Wexford on the US release, and hairline Avant Garde internationally.

More info about the album on Discogs.

The artwork for the international release uses centered ITC Avant Garde Gothic in its Extra-Light weight, making use of its alternates for A and e.

Album cover made by Rémy Poncet / Brest Brest Brest for the French label Objet Disque and the band Karaocake with the font Plaak by Damien Gautier / 205TF and the monospaced font Monosten for the credits on the back and small informations.

Album cover made by Rémy Poncet / Brest Brest Brest for the first edition of François de Roubaix’ soundtrack for Daughters of Darkness / Les Lèvres Rouges (1971), released by Music on Vinyl in 2018. All typography uses Radikal by Nico Inosanto, all in capitals except the liner notes.

[More info on Discogs]

Poster made by Rémy Poncet / Brest Brest Brest for the French singer Miossec with Ostia Antica by Yoann Minet / Bureau Brut and a photograph from Richard Dumas.

SIGN front cover. [More info on Discogs]

SIGN is the 14th studio album released by Autechre. They made a listening party for the album on October 8th on their website. The album was officially released on the 16th.

PLUS was the second consecutive album released by surprise shortly after, on the 28th of October. Most of the time, Autechre’s studio album releases are accompanied by an EP (or rather a so-called EP – they end up being an hour or two).

Both albums were released on Warp Records in Manchester, UK. The typeface used throughout the artwork is Amina by local type designer Wayne Fearnley. Derived from his neo-grotesk Metrik, Amino is distinguished by the way how joins involving diagonals are handled. Both typeface families were made available earlier this year.

SIGN track list on the back cover.

Website detail.

SIGN LP and compact disc.

SIGN CD sleeve.

PLUS front cover. [More info on Discogs]

PLUS LP cover, inner sleeves, and vinyl record.

PLUS track list on the back cover.

Vinyl double album with music created for Benjamin Tuček’s sci-fi film Trash on Mars. The soundtrack was recorded by four musicians known from the groups Midi Lidi, OTK, Gurun Gurun, and B4, namely Petr Marek, Prokop Holoubek, Ondřej Ježek, and Tomáš Procházka. The songs were created during an intensive joint jam session at Studio JáMOR.

Two 1970s Letraset faces with roots in the 19th century, on the cover of an EP by French electropop duo Zombie Zombie from 2013.

The dimensional, shadow-only Buster (Tony Wenman, 1972) channels Victorian styles like Shaded No. 5. The reverse-contrast Zipper (Bob Newman, 1970) is a reconsideration of 19th-century wood type such as Hamilton’s Gothic Bold.

[More info on Discogs]

Kaufmann in use for the cover of In The Skies, the second solo album by British blues rock musician and Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green (1946–2020). Design by Susan Marsh. Cover concept by Josiah Spaulding, Jr., Peter Cormack.

[More info on Discogs]

The gatefold with credits and lyrics of some of the songs appears to pair a bold phototype version of Stymie (with monocular a) and Beton or similar.

Album back cover.

Kaufmann was also used for the “Slabo Day” / “In The Skies” single sleeve. Its G was modified, apparently to avoid any overlap with the line above.

Self-titled record from obscure 1980s California new wave band, Tokyo Science.

[More info at Discogs]

A typographic customization to fit the new single of upcoming Spanish artist Anaju.

The sleeve design features MadeType’s Bon Voyage, with customized glyphs such as the E, S, M and accent marks. It’s paired with calligraphy for the signature and Arial.

A video with the lyrics of the song was also made, featuring most of the typography in its full range.

The HBO TV series Euphoria, created by Sam Levinson, uses a custom 5-lined logo, based on LL Prismaset Five by Lineto which, in turn, looks at Rudolf Koch's Prisma. In its curves, Lineto chose to adhere to rigid geometry, resulting in interrupted curves in e.g. the countershape of the U. A colour gradient reflecting the often neonish palette that runs throughout the series is superimposed on the logo, echoing the subject of psychoactive substance abuse that is part of Euphoria’s narrative.

Other on-screen or promotional elements privilege the lowercase use of the ultra-thin versions of Neue Haas Grotesk (Christian Schwartz). The soundtrack for Euphoria is created by Labrinth, who uses a customised Motter Ombra by StudioThinktank.

“Ojibwa”  / “Namid” by Fabrizio Fattore, Resident DJ of NEUHM (Italy), is the 30th release by British/Swiss record label Visions Recordings.

Ojibwa’s journey into deepness, its spacey sounds and percussions, are embodied in Nirvana’s atom-like letterforms used on the label. The outlined letters enhance the retrofuturistic ambiance.

The design of Nirvana (Altiplano) is based on eclectic references, from Art Nouveau and calligraphy to contemporary blobular and rounded forms, which makes it a nice match for contemporary composite music.

From the Altiplano website:

With its Arts & Crafts/medieval fantasy based structure, revisited with circular shapes and pop twists, Nirvana ensures clear readings and at the same time bold contemporary solutions for headlines and posters.

At small sizes, Nirvana’s profile is still literary. But the closer we look, the smoother the curves and the stranger the vibe. Arts & Crafts meets aliens? Max Bill meets William Morris? Victorians on drugs? In type paradise, anything goes.

Organic Grids & Linear Fluids is a 12″ vinyl record with tracks by S&W and Gustaaf. The electronic music was recorded as part of an installation of the same title. It was released by Turnland in a limited edition of 100 copies.

Graphic designer Christian Nicolaus has developed a sound/graphic contraption that uses a projected grid in an half-open cube. This installation becomes a classic step-sequencer to trigger and create simultaneous sounds and graphics. A modular grid is played and individually composed by tracked surfaces that are placed in the sound/graphic grid. Completely different sound and graphic combinations are created, which result in a composition created interactively by the viewer.

The design of the record is also based on the grid used in the installation. Through folding the cover, eight different modular combinations are possible. The record comes with a full booklet describing the process of the installation.

The font in use is a custom cut of Lausanne (old version).

Gza Semibold in use for two records by Den Sorte Skole (“The Black School”), a Copenhagen-based DJ, producer and composer collective.

Symphony No. I For Sampler And Chamber Orchestra — Den Sorte Skole And The Danish National Chamber Orchestra. Limited to 800 hand-numbered copies. Includes a booklet with a list of all the samples used and credits. Writing on the record jacket is debossed and with glossy text. Recorded in The Concert Hall at The Danish Broadcasting Company, Copenhagen, June 2014.

Symphony No. II For Sampler And Chamber Orchestra — Den Sorte Skole And Copenhagen Phil. Pressing of 800 hand-numbered copies. Includes a booklet with a list of all the samples used and credits. Writing on the record jacket is debossed and with glossy text.
Recorded in The Concert Hall of the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen, May 2016.

Umor Rex is a record label and publishing house based in Mexico City. This entry shows four of their releases from 2017:

• UR095 — Terrence Hannum: Impiety
• UR096 — Missing Organs: Old Speakers
• UR097 — Mukqs: Dame Ningen
• UR100 — Rafael Anton Irisarri: The Shameless Years

Rōnin Recordings is an electronic label based in Mallorca, Spain. We’ve worked for them since day one. On this opportunity we helped creating the first release of Azor. Inspired by moiré effects and the wings of Azor, we created the art of this EP and extended the design to matching artwork, posters, banners and social media content.

Neon playing a solo on this cover and inlay for a recording of Keith Jarrett's 1973 solo concerts in Lausanne and Bremen. Cover by design duo B & B Wojirsch (who were married outside office hours).

Who said Gotham, the quintessential typographic spirit of New York City, could not be German? For the first new release of his recently re-booted label, sound artist Carsten Nicolai, alias Alva Noto, dropped Live 2002, a recording of a long forgotten concert in Gateshead near Newcastle. Together with experimental peers/pioneers Ryoji Ikeda and the late Mika Vainio, the power of raw sound was sculpted into music beyond comprahension.

Echoing the precise interplay of mucial constants found in the trio’s signature clicks and cuts, the album cover similiarly approaches graphic design with a critical relation to platonic essentials. A Swiss style dragged through the cataloging office and back, lines, tables and all caps text intersect in harmonic gray, never for a second losing complete control.

Vinyl editon, clear sleeve and paper inset.

CD cover

Rest in peace, Mika Vaino. A genious dearly missed, never forgotten.

On his second album Slow Knife, electronic musician Kuedo takes cues from his work as a sound designer and commercial composer, introducing elements of cello in to his ultra precise take on dance music. The sleeve is just as sleek, with the Jan Horčík’s beta version of Atlantic mirroring exact cuts and contrast.

Extra ku(e)dos for including typeface credits on the official Bandcamp!