Neville Brody’s Arcadia (1990) is the typeface used for the title. “West End” appears to combine two weights of Helvetica or similar, layered on top of each other. The Sybil logo is custom. “Featuring” is set in slanted Handel Gothic.

From Wikipedia:

On January 4, 1993, American R&B and pop singer-songwriter Sybil released a cover of “The Love I Lost” with West End. It was produced by Mike Stock and Pete Waterman. This version reached number 18 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart and number three in the United Kingdom. The cover also reached number nine in Ireland. Additionally, "The Love I Lost" was also a Top 20 hit in Finland and the Netherlands. And it reached number nine on the Eurochart Hot 100 in October 1993.

[More info on Discogs]

An advertisement for the Sega CD and Game Boy ports of NBA Jam.

Nothing says basketball more than Helvetica Compressed. The copyright notice shown on the bottom is in plain ol’ Helvetica.

This poster advertises a concert organized by Pure and Vibeonauts, called “Thrill Ride 98”. It took place on July 18th, 1998 in Chicago, USA.

The poster uses a mix of upper- and lower-case letters set in Aggie – an adaptation of Zürich. Some characters have also been made transparent, with a stroke added. “Pure” is either a customization of Aggie, or a similar design with rounded terminals. The event date, city, and description appear to be set in all-caps Eurostile.

Front cover of CD and vinyl release. Frankie is used for the band name, and FF Blur Bold for the album title.

From Wikipedia:

CrazySexyCool is the second studio album by American girl group TLC. It was released on November 15, 1994, by LaFace and Arista Records. Following the group's record deal, they released their debut album Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip in 1992 to positive reviews and commercial success. The following year the group began working on a follow-up with an unproductive recording process due to personal struggles, notably those of member Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes who was involved in a volatile romantic relationship and struggling with alcoholism. The album's recording lasted until September 1994, with Lopes' role diminished because she was in rehab.

Art direction was provided by Christopher Stern. Creative direction by Davett Singletary. Photography by Dah Len.

On the album cover, Frankie is used for the band name. The grunged version of Franklin Gothic was made by Type-Ø-Tones in 1992. Neville Brody’s FF Blur Bold, likewise from 1992, is used for the album title. The designer used a variety of upper- and lowercase letters, as well as different text sizes, without wordspaces. FF Blur is also used on the CD itself, as well as on the tracklisting located on the back of the album.

[More info on Discogs]

Back cover of vinyl release. FF Blur Medium is used for the tracklisting text. Photography by Dah Len.

Photography included in the liner of the CD release, by Dah Len.

FF Blur Bold is used for the “Crazy”, “Sexy”, and “Cool” words that surround the CD.

Back cover of original CD release. FF Blur, in a combination of Light and Medium weights, is used for the tracklisting text. Photography by Dah Len.

“1979” was released in 1996 as the second single from the Smashing Pumpkins album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Accompanied by an award-winning video, it became the band’s highest-charting single.

The artwork stands in stark contrast to the retro design of the album, with its elaborate romantic collages and the Victorian typeface. The look of “1979” is very much contemporary, i.e. 1990s. Paul Elledge’s cover photo shows the band members on rollerskates, posing in front of the neon sign of a “game room / party room” – apparently a reference to the front and back covers of Linda Ronstadt’s Living In The U.S.A. The photography uses a combination of long-exposure plus flash, resulting in an aesthetic that is reminiscent of the spontaneousness and embraced imperfection of lomography. The extrawide techno typeface is Mata. The only published typeface design by Greg Samata was released with T-26 in 1995.

Both the Mellon Collie album art and the “1979” single were designed by Frank Olinsky. When Olinsky asked band leader Billy Corgan why he had chosen him, “he said he owned quite a few CDs that I had art directed/designed and he liked that I didn’t have one style that I imposed on all my projects. Rather, he felt that each was a good design that fit the particular recording.” [2009 interview] These releases are a case in point.

[More info on Discogs]

Jewel case with front cover.

Jewel case with back cover. The track numbers and the credits are set in a quintessential 1990s typeface, Conor Mangat’s Platelet (Emigre, 1993).

Open jewel case with compact disc.

Promo poster, pairing Mata with Futura.

Compact cassette (side A) with front cover.

Compact cassette (side B) with back cover. Mata is paired with Platelet.

Front cover of the vinyl release of the “1979” mixes, featuring a globe (or disco ball) with the SP heart logo.

Back cover of the vinyl release of the “1979” mixes.

Box art for the Game Boy game Pokémon Red

Pokémon’s strapline “Gotta catch ’em all”—used on the box art, posters, promotional material—is in Steve Matteson’s Andy. “Red Version”, and the text below it, is in Decotura. The Game Boy game Pokémon was originally released in Red and Blue versions, using the same typographical designs. Red and Blue were closely followed by Pokémon Yellow, using the strapline “Special Pikachu Edition” (in the English imprints) also in Andy.

The success of the Game Boy Pokémon games did a great deal to prolong the success of the Game Boy platform. Pokémon itself went on to become a brand beyond the video games, launching TV series, posters, stickers, plush toys, collectables, and movies. The same Andy/Decotura typography is used on the very many subsequent games in the franchise.

The “GAME BOY” flash used on the left is consistently applied across all the Game Boy boxes in the European market and is in Gill Sans (Bold Italic, stretched and with negative tracking). The wordmark Pokémon and The Nintendo lozenge are trademarks and custom lettering jobs, not typefaces.

Box art for Pokémon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition.

From Wikipedia:

Saturday Night Live (also known simply as SNL) is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol. The show premiere was hosted by George Carlin on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title NBC’s Saturday Night.

From October 1988 (season 14) to May 1995 (season 20), the TV show logo was based on Neville Brody’s Industria. The screenshots seen here are from the SNL intro of Season 18, Episode 1, which aired on September 26, 1992. A picture of the logo on a T-shirt is shown in the last image.

Bumper sticker design from ca. 1993 for the public radio station 88.7 WBFO in Buffalo, NY, a service of the State University of New York at Buffalo (or just University at Buffalo).

Both “NPR NEWS” and “88.7 FM” are set in a slightly horizontally-stretched Pritchard, designed in 1990 by Martin Wait for Letraset. “& jAzZ” is set in Remedy Double, designed in 1991 by Frank Heine for Emigre; the A used is a stylistic alternate. The WBFO logotype is set in tightly-spaced Bernhard Modern Bold, designed in 1937 by Lucian Bernhard for ATF; the crossbar of F is truncated to better accommodate O.

Source: theprodigy.info XL Recordings. Image: theprodigy.info. License: All Rights Reserved.

Cover design by Alex Jenkins, with art direction by Liam Howlett. Photography by Konrad Wothe, Silvestris.

In 1996, The Prodigy introduced a new band logo. The first logo from 1991 was loosely based on Peignot, redrawn and with a heavy outline added. It appeared flat on the debut album Experience (1992), and, from 1993 on, in a distorted variant that was also featured on the cover of the second album Music For The Jilted Generation (1994).

Source: de.wikipedia.org License: All Rights Reserved.

In the new logo, the article was dropped from the name. Enclosed in a cartouche and supplemented by a stylized ant, “Prodigy” was now rendered white on black, in outlined lowercase letters from Keedy Sans. This quintessential 1990s typeface with highly idiosyncratic forms was designed by Jeffery Keedy and released by Emigre in 1991. The logo was used for their third studio album from 1997 as well as the preceding single releases.

Source: www.discogs.com XL Recordings. Image: Discogs. License: All Rights Reserved.

“Firestarter” was released on 18 March 1996. It became the group’s first number-one single on the UK Singles Chart. Photography by Colin Hawkins. Keedy Sans is also used for the title, again in all lowercase letters in a cartouche.

Source: theprodigy.info XL Recordings. Image: theprodigy.info. License: All Rights Reserved.

“Breathe” followed in November 1996 as the second single. Photography by Mary Farbrother. The title is in an eroded version of Alternate Gothic No. 2.

The Fat of the Land was released on 30 June 1997 by XL Recordings in the UK and on 1 July by Maverick Records in the US. It reached number 1 in 22 countries in the first week. In 1999, the album entered the Guinness World Records as the fastest-selling UK dance album. As of 2019, it has sold over 10 million copies worldwide.

In 1996, I travelled to Belgium for Rock Werchter. I came to see Beck and the Smashing Pumpkins, but stayed for the Prodigy. I hadn’t been much into electronic music before, but their performance (and also the ones by the Chemical Brothers and Daft Punk) changed that for good. A year later, I had the chance to see them again at V97 in Leeds. This was just mind-blowing. I can’t claim I became a real Prodigy fan – listening to the records wasn’t quite the same, and ultimately not my cup of tea – but that live show was unforgettable. From mea95dad’s report:

It was a highly impressive bill of bands that came together in the grounds of Temple Newsam stately home on August 16th as one half of the V97 festival. […] It’s been known for a long time that the Prodigy are the most vigorous and electrifying live act around today, but even by their standards tonight’s show was an absolute blinder. […] The greatest thing was the sheer volume of the effect. Instead of the usual pocket of fans going mental in front of the stage the feeling this time spread out, making people about 100 yards back from the stage move and dance along, whether they knew it or not. An incredible experience, and strangely tranquil, in spite of the volume. Keith and Maxim were giving it the usual manic display while blondie Liam went quietly bonkers inside his 3 or 4 walls of technology.

Here’s some video from the gig at the twin festival in Chelmsford the day after. Breathe the pressure / Come play my game I’ll test ya / Psychosomatic addict insane. In my memory, it was a lot louder.

RIP Keith Flint.

Source: theprodigy.info theprodigy.info. License: All Rights Reserved.

French ad announcing the album release on 30 June

Source: theprodigy.info theprodigy.info. License: All Rights Reserved.

Announcement by Belgian record company PIAS. The heavy sans serif caps that also appeared on the album cover are from the fattest member of Univers, the 85 Extra Black.

Source: theprodigy.info theprodigy.info. License: All Rights Reserved.

“Originally, the cover was going to be a doner kebab being roasted on a stick and branded with the name of the album. XL designer Alex Jenkins shot the image, then Howlett changed his mind at the last moment, forcing Jenkins to source the dancing crab photo, which he faxed to Howlett to approve. The claw was increased in size, making it look like the crab is sticking two fingers up to the world.” — theprodigy.info

For Alanis Morissette’s success album Jagged Little Pill (1995), designer Thomas Recchion conceived a fluid design that integrates David Rakowski’s typewriter font Harting (1992) with portraits of Morissette by John Patrick Salisbury. When the album was re-released ten years later, Harting was replaced by Erik van Blokland’s Trixie (1991).

Jagged Little Pill is the third studio album, and international debut, by Canadian singer Alanis Morissette, released in 1995 through Maverick. It was her first album to be released worldwide as her first two albums were released only in her native Canada. Jagged Little Pill topped the charts in ten countries; with sales of over 33 million units worldwide, it is one of the best-selling albums of all time. — Wikipedia

Jewel case inlay (back). The fine print is in another typewriter face that looks like Courier.

CD label print in Harting, with the title set in Title Case. Fine print in yet another typewriter font – ITC American Typewriter.

In 2005, ten years after Jagged Little Pill, an (enhanced) acoustic version of the album was recorded and released. All text now is set in FF Trixie.

A few months after the acoustic version, a deluxe 4-disc collector's edition was released that includes the original album, the acoustic album plus demos and live recordings. It combines Harting for Morissette’s name with FF Trixie for the title.

Razzle Dazzle is a survey of Bob Fosse's career which included directing the movies Cabaret and All That Jazz. Published in 1989 by St. Martin's Press, New York.

The title page is set in generously spaced uppercase letters from Empire. The cover uses a different style of extra narrow caps — maybe a squeezed and modified version of Huxley Vertical.

Title page of the book

closeup of the title page

APA began in 1981 as Advertising Photographers of America. In 1992 Mark Fox hand-inked this logo based on the typeface Bronzo (later renamed UltraBronzo) by Rick Valicenti, released earlier that year by Thirstype. In June 2010, the name was changed to American Photographic Artists.

The album art for De La Soul’s fourth full-length release Stakes Is High is typographically distinguished by the use of Cooper Black Italic (first issued in 1926) in all lowercase on a bouncing baseline, with the band name in outlined and overlapping letters.

Art direction: De La Soul, Michelle Williams. Design: Art Babe / MW [Discogs]
Hat tip to Bald Condensed!

CD jewel case back cover

Vinyl label

Cover art of a mixtape made by Chris Read in 2016 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the album’s release, recreating the famous typography.

“Stakes still high” — fan T-shirt

Season 8 introduced a new opening title sequence, and a new main title with softened ‘X’ appeared in Season 9.

The X-Files is an American science fiction horror drama television series created by Chris Carter. The program originally aired from September 10, 1993 to May 19, 2002 on Fox, spanning nine seasons and 202 episodes. The title sequence won the show its first Emmy Award, which was for Outstanding Graphic Design and Title Sequences. The main title and logo used Industria with an FF Trixie ‘X’ in the background.

On March 24, 2015, it was confirmed the series would return with six episodes. It will begin filming in summer 2015, with Duchovny and Anderson reprising their roles. I’m hoping they maintain the spirit of the original title sequence but update the logo with Trixie HD.

Main title animation from Season 1 (in SDTV).

The opening titles for science fiction animation series Futurama use a hand-lettered main title along with ITC Kabel and Insignia. All these styles have a similar Art Deco influence as those typefaces found in Disney’s Tomorrowland theme parks.

Why are Art Deco-inspired fonts so often employed for futuristic subject matter? Perhaps because the science fiction comic books and modernistic products of the 1920s–40s are the most endearing visual references to popular ideas of what the future might be. Or maybe it’s simply that these geometric, mechanical designs reflect the kind of machine-made world we assume is inevitable.

In Futurama’s case, the retro-futuristic titles are a callback to a pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair that inspired the series’ name. Designed by Norman Bel Geddes, the Futurama exhibit depicted how he imagined the world to look in 1959. See the GM Auditorium for an example of Art Deco architecture and lettering. And GM’s brochure for the attraction is set in Kabel, the predecessor to the ITC Kabel used in the TV series’ credits.

Main title from later seasons in HDTV.