From Wikipedia:

Art Van Damme (April 9, 1920 – February 15, 2010) was an American jazz accordionist.

Van Damme toured Europe and was popular with jazz enthusiasts in Japan.

The swashy Bookman variant used on the cover of his 1967 compilation Music for Lovers is PLINC Bookman Swash. The song list is set in all-caps News Gothic.

[More info on Discogs]

Ekoplus is a waste management center – a modern and neatly structured industry. While doing our research for the new visual identity, they demystified what they do and showed us various processes that take place in their facilities. These processes transform the waste into different things – fuel, water, metal, etc. – but most of all, energy.

Black linear pattern represents the waste that gets buried, and turquoise circles show what is produced with waste as a resource. Of course, everything takes place under Ekoplus’ supervision – serving as a barrier between waste and nature.

Zanosi się na deszcz (“It looks like rain”) is the latest album by Marek Majka & Obłędni.

The cover teeters on the edge of calm and unease. At first glance, it appears to be a serene landscape—golden fields, a solitary black umbrella, heavy clouds looming on the horizon. But is it really? The grasses resemble flames. The umbrella does not seem to shield but rather to warn. Its shape evokes a dark flower—ominous, almost hypnotic. Pause. Something is coming.

This is an image that does not offer easy answers—just like the music on this album. “Przewieszony przez horyzont” (“Suspended Over the Horizon”) and “Podręcznik historii” (“History Handbook”) explore themes of passing time and memories. “Noc zalotna” (“Flirtatious Night”) plays with mystery, while “Melodia” (“Melody”) captures fleeting moments. Each song contributes to a larger story—one that unfolds just before the storm.

The cover blends elements of realism with a slightly surreal atmosphere. The contrast between warm, golden fields and the looming storm clouds builds tension, while the soft texture and fluid shapes add a dreamlike quality.

A key visual component is typography. The chosen font—Bomboniere, designed by Michał Jarociński (Capitalics)—features a delicate, ornamental quality that reinforces the album’s nostalgic tone.

Zanosi się na deszcz is a collection of emotional narratives—ranging from deep reflection to admiration of life’s beauty. Recorded with the band Obłędni, the album is enriched by guest performances and choral arrangements, creating a multi-layered musical experience.

This cover does not impose a singular interpretation—it invites questions. Much like the music itself, it does not provide clear answers but instead allows the listener to find their own meanings within it.

Every year the music blog New Commute asks graphic designers from all over the world to make some artwork depicting their top five albums released in the passing year. For this project, I scanned in some of my personal matchbook collection to rework my favorite albums into fake, long forgotten matchbooks. Using a wide array of my personal favorite typefaces from across eras I was able to put together this depiction of my favorite albums.

“Mundo Chachapoyas” is the brand representing the Utcubamba Valley Tourist Corridor, encompassing the captivating regions of Chachapoyas, Luya, and Bongará in Amazonas, Peru. Through extensive research into the social, cultural, commercial, and natural environments, we aimed to understand and highlight the uniqueness of this tourist destination.

We developed a brand strategy to capitalize on the inherent value of the region, positioning it competitively both nationally and internationally. Our strategic approach helped articulate the destination's strengths, promoting its unique identity and appeal to tourists worldwide, as well as local visitors and the resident communities.

Inspired by the natural and cultural surroundings of the Utcubamba Valley, where once thrived the Chachapoya culture (also known as the ‘people of the clouds’ due to the dense Andean mist) we designed a graphic system based on textures of clouds, forests, earth, and water. This revealed hidden faces and infused the brand with mysticism, using a vibrant and dynamic color palette.

We created Chachanika, a typeface that captures the essence of the Chachapoyas, giving a voice to the region, artisans, communities, and entrepreneurs. It expresses the uniqueness of this area by blending its ancestral heritage with natural wonders from a contemporary and conscious perspective, allowing us to convey the region's cultural richness in every communication element. It is paired with Geologica by Monokrom.

The brand identity of Fore-té Club Attire was designed by Laura Santi at EightySeven:

Fore-té Club Attire is a lifestyle brand that’s reimagining club sports attire for the modern woman. In a world where it’s typical for only a small corner of the pro shop to be reserved for women’s apparel and equipment, founders Andrea and Sean Houlihan saw the need for a fashionable, functional label that put ladies first. […]

Fore-té is designed to disrupt the space by altering women’s expectations for what club fashion can be. They needed a brand experience that could fuse classic form with modern function to appeal to and empower both casual and competitive women to own their style in any club sport setting. […]

Fore-té’s diverse logo suite was built for utility in the fashion space. Its versatile typographic family balances classic and contemporary while maintaining legibility across mediums. Its warm, elegant palette with touches of cooler, natural hues and vibrant pops of color for that energetic flair. Its geometric accent patterns inspired golf course geography. And its actionable tagline, “Play to your strength,” that inspires with a bold, yet approachable brand voice.

The new additional logos are set in ALT Maria Clara. When used on their site, Maria Clara is supported by Aktiv Grotesk Extended.

The Beatles ’65 album was issued in the United States and Canada in December 1964, just in time for Christmas. It includes eight of the fourteen songs from Beatles for Sale, supplemented by “I’ll Be Back”, which was omitted from the US version of the previous Hard Day’s Night, plus both sides of the single “I Feel Fine” / “She’s a Woman”.

[More info on Discogs]

Back cover with liner notes and track list set in Century Expanded. The captions underneath the other album covers are in Futura.

Stereo release

Françoise Hardy’s debut album came out in November 1962, when the French singer-songwriter was 18 years old. Most of the songs were written by Hardy together with Roger Samyn (1923–2011). Originally released without a title, it was later referred to as Tous les garçons et les filles, after the title of the popular opening song, in order to distinguish it from Hardy’s other untitled albums.

The cover typeface appears to be Matterhorn, a condensed sans with straight-sided rounds and vertical contrast, issued by Headliners around 1960. It’s here used with contoured letterforms set on a bouncing baseline. I wonder how one would go about using a phototypeface from New York in Paris at the time. Typographie Internationale (Typinter, ti) was a typesetting studio on 5 Rue des Reculettes. It acted as exclusive agent for Headliners, but my understanding is that this company wasn’t established before 1970.

No designer is credited. The photo is by Jean-Marie Périer (b. 1940), and the sleeve was produced by Paris-based printer Dillard et Cie.

[More info on Discogs]

Françoise Hardy died this week at the age of 80. RIP.

The design of the back cover is more mundane, and exclusively typographic. Hardy’s name is set in blue caps from a version of Kristall-Grotesk schmalfett [edit: namely Deberny & Peignot’s Europe Gras Étroit]. The line below features two weights of Chambord. The track list and liner notes is in Gill Sans with its Futura-like alternates for a, g etc.

Logo with Dapifer Italic

Dapifer is the main typeface used for the identity and website of Cerise.

Cerise is the French word for “cherry”. It’s also the abbreviated name of a neighborhood association in Paris’s 1st arrondissement: C.E.R.I.S.E. stands for Carrefour Echanges Rencontre Insertion Saint-Eustache, which can be translated to “junction, exchange, encounter, integration [in the parish of] Saint-Eustache”. Since 1999, it runs a sociocultural center that hosts various cultural events and activities and offers support to those in need.

In 2019, the center’s visual identity was overhauled. The red hexagonal logo holds a stylized cherry with the name shown as the curved stem, in custom script lettering. Below, the claim (“a living and cultural space in the heart of Paris”) is set in Dapifer’s lively italic.

Text and headlines on the website are set in various weights and styles of both Dapifer and Dapifer Stencil. Darden Studio’s unbracketed old-style serif is supported by Anivers, a sans by Jos Buivenga, for menus and information boxes. This typographic mix is enriched by changing display typefaces.

Homepage with a welcome message in Dapifer Stencil. One of the slides features Bungee by DJR.

Page about “help and mutual aid”, with Dapifer Stencil Bold for the headline, Dapifer Italic for the lede, and upright Dapifer for the small text.

Anivers is used for the main and subordinate menus as well as for the practical info.

The menu uses color-coded tabs for the six categories of the website – culture is pink and includes information about theater, exhibitions, concerts, and more.

The leisure activities also include a writing workshop.

Dapifer in all caps for the umbrella and cargo trike of the Comptoir des Associations, as well as for the white banner in the background

At the neighborhood fleamarket in front of the Centre Cerise on 46 rue Montorgueil

Basier by Atipo is used across the whole identity of Butcher & Barlow.

Butcher & Barlow is a law firm with the weight of 135 years of history on its shoulders, and all the corporate stereotypes that come with it. But as generational change happened internally to promote younger and more entrepreneurial partners, the firm needed to reflect that externally. That meant a modern identity that echoed the more relatable and personable direction the firm wanted to head in. The symbol, featuring an outer protective B enclosing an inner B, symbolised trust and reassurance.

“Burning of the Midnight Lamp” is a song recorded by The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and written by frontman Jimi Hendrix. It features R&B group the Sweet Inspirations on backing vocals, and was produced by band manager Chas Chandler. Though the single was released in 1967 (with “The Stars That Play with Laughing Sam’s Dice” as B-side), the song wouldn’t appear on either of the band’s 1967 albums, but instead on their 1968 double LP, Electric Ladyland.

No cover designer is credited. The photo is by Jürgen Wolfgang, and the sleeve was printed by Ludwig Fr. Noltemeyer, Braunschweig.

[More info on Discogs]

Opened in 1910, Nashville’s first “million-dollar” hotel has undergone a brand overhaul with today’s traveler in mind. Its opulent rooms famously hosted campaigners for (and against) women’s right to vote, with the yellow-rose-wearing Suffrage supporters winning by a hair.

In honor of this pivotal event, Mucca's rebrand leans into a bold signature yellow, paired with custom typeface, Suffragette, inspired by the hotel’s Beaux Arts interiors. A contemporary tone of voice redefines this heritage brand for a new era of modern Southern hospitality.

Un été aux Coteaux is a program featuring summer activities for the inhabitants of the Coteaux neighborhood in Mulhouse, France.

The booklet for the 2021 edition was designed by me, Yann Gall, using the typefaces Savate (designed by Max Esnée of Collectif We.ch and distributed by Velvetyne) and Granville (designed by Jean-Baptiste Levée and distributed by Production Type). See also the booklet for the previous edition featuring the same typeface combination.

To the rhythm of the Super Tipo Veloz modular typeface, a summery customized version of the typeface – inspired by towels and parasols – presents the first edition of the Istiu festival. Istiu is a colloquial dialectal variant of estiu, the Catalan word for “summer”.

The illustrations and typography are based on the typographic system created by Joan Trochut Blanchard in 1942, a pioneer and benchmark in Spanish graphic design. It was digitalized and revived by Andreu Balius and Alex Trochut in 2004.

The stripes and colour combinations – which will change for each edition of the festival – seek to transmit the freshness of the summer breeze while at the same time set the tempo and visual rhythm of the artists’ names.

Taking a less is more approach to the brand refresh of Redrow homes. The biggest brand change in over 40 years removed legacy typefaces and implements Proxima Nova as its sole typeface for this well-loved home builder. Helping to build a consistent, confident and more aspirational brand.

See the full case study on absolute.agency.

Turas is an addiction counselling service and charitable organisation based in Ireland.

We were tasked with breathing new life into a tired brand, with no clear consistency in its message. To do this, we simplified the language which they used, making a statement and informative pieces more emotive, engaging and contemporary. This new succinct language then influenced the creation of a suite a conceptual illustrations to sit harmoniously alongside when needed.

The all-lowercase logo is based on Calibre. It’s paired with Karla as the brand typeface.

Beggar’s Opera is a Scottish prog rock band founded in Glasgow in 1969. Act One is their debut album, released in 1970 on Vertigo Records. For the album cover, KEEF chose to use what’s arguably one of the ugliest typefaces ever made.

Lettres Art Nouveau was drawn by French artist Étienne Mulier and published around 1900 in an album of 28 color lithographs titled Lettres et Enseignes Art Nouveau, as one of several capital period alphabets. It’s not Mulier’s fault that the typeface looks so hideous. He wasn’t a typeface designer, and very likely never intended his letterforms to be used in words, at least not directly, where they start resembling a train of bowels. They were rather conceived as inspirational lettering material, to be freely adjusted depending on the context. Furthermore, they would work as initials – single ornate capitals to mark the beginning of a text. The original was bichromatic, with the top and bottom halves shown in two shades of green. A charming set of whimsical initials, if you’re into the organic, flowing aesthetic from the turn of the century. A beautiful group of letters, not so much.

More than sixty years later, Walter Haettenschweiler and Armin Haab revived Mulier’s floral capitals. Their “redrawn and completed” version is reproduced in Lettera 3 from 1968, as Alphabet Art Nouveau, in solid black. It was probably this alphabet source book where Keef found the letterforms. Soon after, the piece of lettering was made into a typeface proper: Photo adaptations appear in a ca. 1977 Typeshop catalog as Art Nouveau. The Solotype catalog (1992) lists it as Novella. In 1999, Dieter Steffmann made a digitization named Art Nouveau Caps, with numerals taken from Arnold Böcklin.

[More info on Discogs]

The track list and credits on the gatefold are set in pink Goudy Oldstyle.

The opposite page shows a mirror image, with a darker version of the band portrait. The text is distorted as if it were reflected by the water surface.

Back cover.

Two Filmotype fonts on the cover of Rosa La China, a Zarzuela Cubano album recorded by Ernesto Lecuona with Dolores Perez, Luis Sagi-Vela, Luisa de Cordoba, and Maño Lopez.

Filmotype LaSalle was designed by Ray Baker and issued in 1952. The light monolinear freestyle serif is called Mars and was added before 1955. Cover designer Gene R. Smith used it in all caps, alongside Futura (which was among the many standard foundry typefaces adopted by Filmotype for their display phototypesetting machine). While LaSalle has been given a new lease of life by Rebecca Alaccari and Patrick Griffin, Mars still waits to be digitized.

The photo is by Tony Guyther. First released by Montilla probably in the late 1950s, this album was re-released by Zafiro (Spain) in 1972 and by Montilla in 1983.

[More info on Discogs]

“Birthday” (No. 307). Illustration by Tom Sawyer. The typeface is Davison Dimensional.

Covers for various clip books of line art issued in 1978 by Harry Volk Jr. Art Studio, Pleasantville, New Jersey. Each booklet features another face for the cover, typically in an attempt to echo the topic in the typeface choice, see e.g. the graphic Futura Black for “Graphic Arts”, the 19th-century Bracelet for “Western”, or the engraved Bond Shaded for “Money”. This volume uses Kabel Black for the bottom line, framing the logo designed by Herb Lubalin in 1976. The heavy border with rounded (and sometimes inset) corners was introduced in 1976, too, but wasn’t seen on most issues from 1977.

See the previous post about the clip books issued in 1955 for more information on Harry Volk Jr. Art Studio.

“Wedding” (No. 304) ft. Tintoretto.

“Holidays” (No. 305) ft. Caslon Antique.

“Homes-Buildings” (No. 306) ft. caps from Compacta set on an arc. The fanning suggests this was set with phototype, as ooposed to dry transfer lettering.

“Graphic Arts” (No. 308) ft. Futura Black.

“Expressions” (No. 309) ft. Archie in all caps.

“Religion” (No. 310) with what looks like some sort of Normande Italic. Berthold’s phototype version comes close except for the n.

“Winter” (No. 311) ft. Goudy Heavyface in italic all caps.

“Occupations” (No. 314) ft. Dynamo. Originally issued in 1930, this design was revived and extended at Letraset in the late 1970s.

“Spring” (No. 315) ft. Mania. Illustration by Tom Sawyer.

“Marine” (No. 700) ft. Tip-Top.

“Western” (No. 701) ft. Romantiques No. 5 / Bracelet. This ornamented Tuscan originated in the 19th century. It was available for dry-transfer lettering from Mecanorma (as Tuscan Ornate) amd Letraset (as Romantiques No. 5).

“Executives” (No. 704) ft. Columna Solid.

“Tourism” (No. 705) ft. Solemnis. Illustration by Tom Sawyer.

“Couples” (No. 706) ft. Yagi Double.

“Safety” (No. 707) ft. caps from Compacta Outline.

“Christmas” (No. 712) ft. the ornate Green Buzzard.

“Transportation” (No. 715) ft. Compacta Italic.

“Family” (No. 716) ft. Benguiat Caslon with swash alternates.

“Landmarks” (No. 717) ft. Saphir.

“Environment” (No. 718) ft. all-lowercase Charter Oak, tightly spaced.

“Money” (No. 719) ft. a version of Bond Shaded, probably Bond Shaded. Illustration by Tom Sawyer.

“Children” (No. 720) ft. all-caps Mistral.

“Groups” (No. 721) ft. a bunch of people pointing at tightly spaced caps from ITC Zapf Book Heavy.

“Circus/Fair” (No. 722) ft. West Barnum Ultra.

“Contests” (No. G86) ft. more Benguiat Caslon, this time in all caps. The logo of the Grafika subseries is in ITC Fat Face with ligatures for ra and fi, accompanied by Kabel Light with omitted tittles.

“Design Devices” (No. G87) ft. Harlow, a Letraset release from 1977. “ZAP” is probably custom lettering.

“Something Extra” (No. G89) ft. Slim Dandy, a variation of the Mansard theme, by Lettergraphics.

“Lankies” (No. G90) ft. Churchward Design Sparkly.

“Symbols” (No. G91) ft. Cucumber

“Printed Forms” (No. G93) ft. Gonzales Jeanette with Akzidenz-Grotesk Condensed and Windsor.

“Big & Strong” (No. G94) ft. Atlas and more Mania, set on a curve.

“Announcers” (No. G95), again with Slim Dandy.

From unionsquarenyc.org:

The Union Square Partnership is a community-based non-profit organization working to ensure the best possible neighborhood for its residents, businesses and visitors. USP’s programs include sanitation, public safety, economic development and marketing services, and we invest in the beautification and maintenance of Union Square Park, the district’s crown jewel.

From C&G Partners:

The new C&G Partners brand and rollout collateral represents the improvements Union Square Partnership is responsible for in the area, while also creating a sense of place. The visual identity system highlights a vibrant urban community—encompassing nine acres where people live, eat, learn, work, shop and play.

Along with the new identity, C&G designed streetscape elements including, banners, park posters, print collateral and graphics for events such as Sweat Fest and the 2015 Annual Meeting. The completed brand system uses staggered text as a customizable tool, allowing the Partnership to easily create sub-brands and event materials with a similar look and feel. The typography and logotype of the new brand are set in Geogrotesque. A flexible color palette comprised of a range of distinct and approachable colors can be used for various events and printed communications throughout the year.

Images provided by Union Square Partnership. Image credits: Steven Jackson and Liz Ligon.