Fonts from the Flea Market #1362

I Nuovi Angeli (“the New Angels”) are a pop group from Milan, Italy. In 1974, they released the prog rock single “Carovana”, with “Trighe contro trighe” on the B-side. The sleeve depicts the four members in a Warhol-like style, with posterized photos in bright colors. The typography follows suit: the band name is shown in a multicolor use of Astral. The song names are added in Arnold Böcklin.

[More info on Discogs]

Pociąg do Hollywood (“Train for Hollywood”) is a 1987 Polish comedy film directed by Radosław Piwowarski and starring Katarzyna Figura as the “Polish Marilyn Monroe”.

For the Czechoslovak release in 1988, Zdeněk Ziegler designed a poster that shows the title on a steep angle, with letters from alternating typefaces set on a bouncing baseline. Is this a typographic depiction of a derailing train?

The star of the show is the Y from Astral, here in a four-color rendition. The title starts and ends with Caslon 540 Italic. The H probably is from Comstock Condensed, the L from Stencil, and the O’s from something similar to Thorne Shaded – maybe a version of Figgins Shaded? The small print with the credits is set in what looks like Universal Grotesk.

I just learned that Zdeněk Ziegler passed away a year ago, on April 18, 2023. He was 90. RIP.

Source: www.jozefsquare.com jozefSquare. License: All Rights Reserved.

Slovak poster titled Zaľúbený blázon.

Source: moja-tv.sk License: All Rights Reserved.

Czech poster titled Zamilovaný blázen. In this version, the acute to go with Avant Garde Gothic is just as flat and thin as the one above the A in Astral.

The poster design by Karel Vaca for the Czechoslovak release of Innamorato pazzo features a four-colored rendition of the ever-sanguine Astral. It’s paired with ITC Avant Garde Gothic with custom diacritics, including a vertical acute and a triangular háček. Czechoslovakia was a state with two official languages, Czech and Slovak. The poster hence was produced in two language variants.

Known in English as Madly in Love, the Italian romantic comedy written and directed by Castellano & Pipolo was first released in 1981, starring Adriano Celentano and Ornella Muti.

Neo Script, Astral, and Blippo Black in all caps on the sleeve of a French 7″ single. “Why Can’t We Live Together” appears to be the only release by the Synthetic Cha Cha Band.

The design may not be the most inventive one, and the combination of styles seems haphazard (I get that Neo Script for “Synthetic“ was chosen in reference to electronic circuits). But doesn’t Astral lift your spirits? See Michel Jarland’s pictorial caps in another chromatic use for a single from the following year. There, even the rising sun got an extra color.

All three typefaces were available for dry-transfer lettering from Mecanorma. The former two were Mecanorma originals, and had been released just shortly before, in 1972 or 1973. They probably were sourced from the manufacturer’s permanent contest, which spawned a whopping 27 new faces between March 1972 and May 1973, according to Dutch trade journal Kontekst.

[More info on Discogs]