One of the most iconic in-use examples of Motter Tektura, next to the use by Apple, is the classic Reebok logo introduced in 1976. We have previously documented the various logo variants, on shoes, shirts, and stickers.

This post shows a longsleeve produced by Reebok around 2014, highlighting the logo’s initial letter. The R shows several of Tektura’s defining features in a nutshell: uncompromising monolinearity, sporadic stencil-like gaps, and single descending stems.

The image was made for an editorial for Vice Magazine Italia.
Photography: Alberto Moreu with Federico Ferrari
Stylist: Riccardo Linarello
Assistant stylist: Michela Meni

Ink and whiteout on cardboard, with “Sport” pasted in, 57.6×42.1 cm

Looking back, Othmar Motter characterized his Motter Alustyle as “a flash in the pan. A purely fashionable typeface. Whereas, on principle, I otherwise didn’t really respond to fashionable or trendy faces”.*

This didn’t stop him from reactivating Alustyle for a logo design made in the early 1990s, two decades after he released it through Berthold Fototypes in 1972. Alex Giorgi was a sport equipment shop in Grödnertal, Italy. It’s not clear if the logo design was implemented.

*) In conversation with Christian Feuerstein and Manuel Tiziani in 2006, as cited in Elias Riedmann: Othmar Motter – Meister der Extrabold, Triest Verlag, 2019; my translation.
The image is reproduced from the book with kind permission of Triest Verlag.

LP cover (front)

Motter Tektura is used for Mechanical Fantasy Box, a collection of 13 unreleased songs by Patrick Cowley (1950–1982), recorded between 1973 and 1980, and released by Dark Entries Records in October 2019.

The double vinyl LP comes housed in a black and white gatefold jacket designed by Gwenaël Rattke featuring a photograph by Susan Middleton, an essay from bandmate Maurice Tani, and an 8.5×11″ insert with notes. […] [It is] released in tandem with Cowley’s homoerotic journal of the same title. […] — Dark Entries Records

Tektura was designed by Othmar Motter in 1974. It was popularized through the use by Reebok (1976), Apple (1977), and Trapper Keeper (1978), and later also appeared for the logo of audio software producer Steinberg. The sci-fi face is a brilliant choice for a throwback to the late 1970s/early 1980s in general, and for a pioneer of electronic dance music in particular.

It comes with a number of unusual letterforms, like the single-legged A or the headless S. Its w/W might be the hardest to swallow (unless you happen to aim for a pretzel-themed identity). This album cover features not one, but two substitutes for the unwieldy glyph. The artist’s name includes a customized form with diagonals that might have been made from a double v. The track list on the back cover shows another, simpler, and more convincing approach: The w in “breakdown” is an upside-down m.

Read more about Cowley and the Mechanical Fantasy Box.

LP cover (back)

Softcover. Tektura’s descending s is hyper-extended to form an underline.

The text face used in the journal is ITC Korinna.

Hardcover, made in a limited edition of 100 copies.

Source: antoniostella.tumblr.com Tony Stella. License: All Rights Reserved.

Poster for Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, featuring Branagh himself, alongside Julie Christie, Billy Crystal, Gérard Depardieu, Charlton Heston, Derek Jacobi, Jack Lemmon, Rufus Sewell, Robin Williams, and Kate Winslet.

It was designed by Tony Stella for a pitch, but eventually remained unused. His painting of Yorick’s skull is complemented by all-caps typography, using two typefaces released by ITC in the mid 1990s: Othmar Motter’s ITC Motter Corpus (1994) and Phill Grimshaw’s ITC Obelisk (1996).

Deep Groove! is a best-of compliation by American jazz saxophonist, composer, bandleader, producer Julian “Cannonball” Adderley (1928–1975). It was released by Blue Note Records in 1994. Graham Marsh used Motter Ombra in all caps for the cover typography.

[More info on Discogs]

Motter Ombra was distributed by Berthold Fototypes in West Berlin and Letraset in the United Kingdom. It found its way to the other side of the Iron Curtain as well – as documented by uses from Czechoslovakia and Hungary – by means of privately imported dry-transfer sheets, cut-and-pasted photocopies, or by tracing showings in trade journals.

Gisela Kossatz, a prolific designer from East Germany, fell in love with Othmar Motter’s extrabold display novelty, too. Apparently she couldn’t get hold of the original font, though. Or maybe she had run out of smuggled rub-down type. For the cover of Santa Esmeralda’s disco remake of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” on Amiga, Kossatz went ahead and cut her own Ombra. The letterforms may be a little wonky and inconsistent, but the result is all the more charming.

License: All Rights Reserved.

In spring 2012, retailer Macy’s launched a Brazil-themed campaign.

From Sao Paulo to Rio, and from the Amazon to Bahia, Macy’s tribute campaign aims to capture the spirit of this rich and intriguing culture through specially-curated in-store shops, collaborations with well-known Brasilian fashion designers, Brasil-themed events in stores and a fundraising program to benefit the Amazon Rainforest.

Motter Femina is prominently featured for the campaign graphics; on banners, POS displays, shopping bags, and product labels. The swirling bold cursive by Austrian designer Othmar Motter is used with alternating glyph colors. It also appears in an iOS app and a video clip.

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

Source: thebrazilianfoodie.wordpress.com The Brazilian Foodie. License: All Rights Reserved.

In-store decoration.

Source: www.falandodeviagem.com.br License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.falandodeviagem.com.br License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.kakauhofke.com Kakau Höfke. License: All Rights Reserved.

Shopping bags featuring designs by Brazilian artist Kakau Höfke.

Source: dribbble.com Adam Barnum. License: All Rights Reserved.

Motter Femina in use for “an interactive iOS based application that utilized augmented reality to engage in-store visitors with immersive game experiences”, designed by Adam Barnum and produced by Magic Bullet Media.

Video clip produced by Magic Buller Media. Motter Femina is used in all-lowercase for the location names.

Source: vimeo.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: vimeo.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: vimeo.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: vimeo.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Motter Ombra paired with lowercase ITC Avant Garde Gothic on the cover of a statistics textbook published in 1976 by Wadsworth.

I love how Ombra is twisting and turning over the gridded dancefloor!

Austrian Motter Ombra (1972) in all-lowercase use on the Belgian sleeve for a single by Greek singer Vicky Leandros, released by a record company with Dutch roots. This was three years after Leandros won the Eurovision Song Contest held in the United Kingdom, while representing the country of Luxembourg. The French titles are in ITC Ronda (from New York City).

Via the Fonts from the Flea Market series by Büro Destruct from Switzerland.

An early use of Motter Tektura for the cover of a record with piano interpretations by Sergei Prokofiev, both released in 1974.

His own Love for Three Oranges, Tales of the Old Grandmother and 7 other selections, plus compositions by Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Mussorgsky, Scriabin, Miaskovsky and Glazounov.

The typeface with the exotic blocky letterforms – especially notable in the capitals – might have been chosen to hint at the musician’s Russian origin without having to use actual Cyrillic characters.

It may look like Tektura’s A was modified for a snug combination with the L. In fact, it’s just tightly spaced. This letter doesn’t have a full left leg by default.

The brown type is Radiant Heavy. Graphic design by Tri-Arts [Discogs], with illustration signed by “T. Rigsby” (?).

Outwards Journeys is a more recent example for Tektura used in all caps on a record cover.

An anthology of scary stories from Edgar Allen Poe, O. Henry, August Derleth, Oscar Wilde, Joyce Carol Oates, Joe Lansdale, and more. As seen at jell-o biafra says. Cover illustration by Meryl Henderson.

Absurd is a 1981 B-grade slasher film directed by Italian exploitation filmmaker Joe D’Amato.

Movie summary from Letterboxd:

A man has been driven insane by church-sanctioned scientific experimentation which also causes him to be nearly impossible to kill. He is pursued to America by a priest where he embarks upon a killing spree while the priest tries to hunt him down and kill him.

The film was released VHS in the UK by Medusa Communications Ltd. and was included on the Director of Public Prosecutors list of “video nasties”. The cover features a prominent example of custom Stop.

The spine of the cover states: “Sleeve design by IMPRESSIONS 01-722 3939”, but an initial internet search hasn’t turned up much more info about the company or their other design work.

Hellebore is a collection of writings and essays devoted to British folk horror and the themes that inspire it: folklore, myth, history, archaeology, psychogeography, witches, and the occult.

The first issue of the A5 limited-run magazine edited by Maria J. Pérez Cuervo was published on Samhain 2019 and is dedicated to the topic of human sacrifice. The cover art is Come Unto The Corn by Paul Watson. Additional artwork was provided by Eli John. Hellebore is being art directed by Nathaniel Hébert of Winter-Hébert, who comments:

The masthead was adapted from an Edwardian typeface, Herold AKA “Reklameschrift Herold”. For Hellebore, I gave the letterforms an art-nouveau facelift by way of the 70s.

Reklameschrift Herold was designed by Hermann Hoffmann and first cast by the Berthold type foundry in 1901. The series was later expanded by schmal (compressed), Kontur (outline), and fett (bold) styles. There are a number of digitizations as well as contemporary reinterpretations (see the typeface page for details). In Herold, all the weight is distributed around the top and bottom of the letters, giving it a squeezed, claustrophobic feel.

The Hellebore logo exclusively shows its high-waisted caps. The modifications make it look as if just emerged from a swamp. Hébert increased the flabbiness of Herold’s already wobbly contours, with more pronounced concaves. Most notably, the R became gaunt, exhibiting a smaller eye and a limpish leg.

Herold also appears for headlines, in unmodified (or less heavily modified) form. It’s paired with Berton Hasebe’s Portrait Condensed (Commercial Type, 2013). I’m not saying there’s something inherently eerie about Portrait, but the first documented Use was David Pearson’s cover for the Bonnier Pocket edition of The Shining.

Nobody believes 6-year-old Andy Barclay when he says that “Chucky”, his new birthday doll, is alive. And when Andy's babysitter is violently pushed out the window to her death, the boy tells his mother and the detective the simple truth - “Chucky did it.”

Child’s Play (1988) ends with the death of Chucky — but for the sake of sequels, the deathly doll was revived for three more Child’s Play movies (1990, 1991, 2019). The initial movie was released with two similar logos.

The design shown in the first two images uses slightly modified Flyer, with a razor sharp apostrophe and an extended P. Or is it based on Futura Extra Bold? The latter typeface’s curves in the uppercase S look less ‘aggressive’ than in Flyer.

For the second design, the horror factor was turned up by adding a splash of blood on the tightly spaced letters of the logo which appears to be based on Franklin Gothic Condensed. Letraset had a version where, like in the movie logo, the C has horizontal terminals and the S diagonal ones.

For blurbs and credits, the designers seem to have used whatever was at hand in their catalogue: Univers, Helvetica, and bits of Futura Condensed.

VHS video cover.

Activism poster telling about the current political situation of Catalonia. Fighting for our rights with some poster art. The text is taken from “Violència”, a song by Orxata Sound Sistema.

Nathan Moody is a musician, sound designer, mastering engineer, animator, and artist based in San Francisco, California [Discogs]. His latest album, Shades, was released on cassette and digital September 13, 2019. Design and typography by Corey Holms, making great use of Roslindale Variable Display (the variable version of David Jonathan Ross's Font of the Month Roslindale). Illustrations by Johan G. Winther.

Brief biographies of some famous practitioners of black magic throughout history including Johann Faust, Cagliostro, John Dee, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Aleister Crowley, and others. Published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. See more images from the interior.

The title typeface is DeVinne Ornamental, in tightly spaced caps, with some extra fine lines added.

Artwork for the self-titled debut album by Concept Neuf. Sleeve concept and photography by Richard Provençal, cover painting by France Malo.

This record by the Montreal band is mostly samba and jazz-funk covers of artists such as Chuck Magione and Ralph McDonald. The type used on the front is Premier Shaded, the notes are in Helvetica, and on the insert notes Aki Lines can be also found.

The fonts work well in fitting in with the albums sonic qualities, especially looking back from the current day. It's easy to tell that this record is from the 1970s just by looking at the use of Premier Shaded on the front cover. An unremarkable choice for the time; fitting for an album of average samba covers. A lot of albums from this time fit a similar concept - popular songs but make it (insert genre) - and use similar typefaces. I think that Premier Shaded works well with the kitschy and surrealist oil pastel illustration of an endless marimba in the desert on the front.

Tech-house DJ Ninetoes sampled their cover of “The Path” for his track “Finder”, which has since gone on to become both an Ibiza staple and soccer ultras anthem in the North Curve section of Celtic Park, Glasgow. This is where I first encountered this record personally, and I think it's quite funny to think about how an unremarkable samba cover of a Ralph McDonald song can go on to become a stadium anthem albeit 40 years down the line!

France Malo, the cover's artist, is still making work.

When future and past collide: Amelia (1966), the typographic embodiment of the Space Age and sixties futurism, paired with Crayonette (1889), the undulating fantasy cursive from late romanticism, connected by little more than their otherness, i.e. pronounced stroke contrast (vertical in the former, horizontal in the latter), with thicker parts in unusual places.

The Seven Gates of Transcendental Consciousness is the second album by Master Wilburn Burchette. Between 1971 and 1977, the California mail-order mystic released seven albums with experimental guitar music “before abruptly burning and discarding everything related to his musical explorations.” [Numero Group] Originally released in 1972 on Ebos Record, the instrumental album included a “full color instruction book” with seven pieces of original artwork by Wisconsin artist Caren Caraway. The Seven Gates was reissued in 2015 by Fifth Dimension, and is available in digital form from Numero Group.

Detail from the back cover. “This is real stereo! Be prepared to hear things you may have never heard before!” The typeface is Spartan, Linotype’s copy of Futura, here easily distinguishable by its alternate double-storey a.

The poems accompanying Caraway’s images are set in a bold italic Bodoni (probably Mergenthaler Linotype’s version).

The biographies are set in Excelsior or similar.

“A Transcendental Ballet for the Mind of God”
Now YOU can experience transcendental consciousness without spending 10 years in a Tibetan monastery. Achieve transcendental consciousness and experience the heightened awareness of psychic freedom. Travel beyond the sensory plane and let your spirit soar as Wilburn Burchette’s transcendental music guides you through the seven gates of the seven levels of consciousness. This is an experience you can recreate time after time in the privacy of your own room — a experience that was once the exclusive property of the accomplished mystic. Now, you too may share the indescribable state of mind that has been the goal of seekers from all lands since the beginning of time. […]

The liner notes are by Brad Steiger.

German sleeve for a 1976 single by Peter Frampton, featuring Penny Farthing with a mix of its wide and narrow glyphs, plus a nested NN ligature.

“Do You Feel Like We Do” originally [appeared] on the Frampton’s Camel album that he released in 1973. The song became one of the highlights of his live performances in the following years, and it became one of the three hit singles released from his Frampton Comes Alive! album, released in 1976. — Wikipedia

Edited down from the extended album-closing track that it originally was, this was Frampton’s lighter-in-the-air audience-participation number, right down to the inclusive invitation in the title. “Hey Jude” it isn’t but I just about get it. However, the song’s not heavy enough for a rock anthem, not light enough to be a teenybop singalong and thus seems to fall between two stools. — Lejink, rateyourmusic.com