ZAK 15 features artworks by Japanese artist Shoji Mochida. Link Overlap is used for headlines and small titles. The type settings are super tight, creating interesting graphic patterns in the layouts. Ufficio Sans is used as the body copy.

ZAK is a zine introducing special Japanese artists, curated, edited, art directed, and published by Lukas Holinka.

Tightly spaced italics from Century Expanded, on the cover of For Those in Love, an album by Percy Faith and His Orchestra and Chorus, released in 1968 on Columbia Records. Cover photography by Frank Bez.

[More info on Discogs]

Source: www.theideaofthebook.com The Idea of the Book. License: All Rights Reserved.

Book jacket (second edition by Niggli, Teufen, 1964)

Dan Reynolds, esteemed friend of the site, writes on Mastodon:

125 years ago today – at exactly 12:05 in the afternoon, Berlin time – H. Berthold AG filed prints of 13 sizes of Akzidenz-Grotesk’s regular weight with the Berlin Muster-Register. That means that it is the typeface’s “birthday” right now.

You can read more on his Typeoff blog and see internal Berthold documents from the Historical Archive at the Deutsches Technikmuseum.

Source: www.ebay.co.uk skylonabooks. License: All Rights Reserved.

Book jacket (second edition by Alec Tiranti, London, 1964)

We celebrate Akzidenz-Grotesk’s big day by posting one of its most iconic uses, by a die-hard fan of the typeface.

Gestaltungsprobleme des Grafikers (English: The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems, French: Les problèmes d’un artiste graphique) was written, compiled and designed by Josef Müller-Brockmann (1914–1996). He worked on the book while serving as professor of graphic design at the Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich, or School of Applied Arts, a position he held from 1957 to 1960. It was first published in 1961 by Verlag Arthur Niggli, Teufen AR, Switzerland. Alec Tiranti published it in the United Kingdom. A second edition followed in 1964, a third in 1968.

Source: www.theprintarkive.co.uk The Print Arkive. License: All Rights Reserved.

Book cover (first UK edition by Alec Tiranti, London, 1961). According to Felix Wiedler, this is 48pt Akzidenz-Grotesk halbfett. It’s used with very small word spaces.

Source: www.theprintarkive.co.uk The Print Arkive. License: All Rights Reserved.

Title page (third edition, 1968)

On 188 pages organized in eighteen chapters and a grid-based layout with four columns, Müller-Brockmann outlines his approach to solving visual design problems. As the subtitle hints at (“Design and Training in Commercial Art”), the book is directed at beginners and students. At the same time, it serves as a personal monograph: most of the shown works are by Müller-Brockmann himself. He does include works of others, too, for example by Ursula Keller, Nicoletta Baroni, Ruedi Rüegg, and Christof Gassner – who were among his students at the Kunstgewerbeschule.

Akzidenz-Grotesk is not only used throughout the book, from the cover to the captions. It’s also featured in numerous of the depicted examples, some of which were covered in previous posts on Fonts In Use.

In his book (design) story #89, Felix Wiedler points out that Gestaltungsprobleme des Grafikers was issued two years after Gerstner+Kutter’s Die neue Graphik and one year after Hans Neuburg’s Moderne Werbe- und Gebrauchs-Graphik, and that “the cover is very similar, too, with its asymmetric title in large Akzidenz-Grotesk letters. The brownish-grey jacket with black and white type is actually quite ‘Gerstner’)”.

Fun fact: when this book came out sixty-two years ago, Akzidenz-Grotesk was about sixty-two years old.

Source: www.theprintarkive.co.uk The Print Arkive. License: All Rights Reserved.

Colophon (third edition, 1968)

Source: www.theprintarkive.co.uk The Print Arkive. License: All Rights Reserved.

Preface and start of first chapter about “the graphic artist and his task”

Source: www.theprintarkive.co.uk The Print Arkive. License: All Rights Reserved.

Typography in advertising

Source: www.theideaofthebook.com The Idea of the Book. License: All Rights Reserved.

Photography in advertising: two posters from a campaign for more road safety

Source: www.theprintarkive.co.uk The Print Arkive. License: All Rights Reserved.

The drawing in advertising

Source: www.theideaofthebook.com The Idea of the Book. License: All Rights Reserved.

Colour in advertising.
Left: even JMB got his stuff rejected: the poster for OLMA 1959 remained unrealized.
Right: Der Film was an exhibition shown at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Zürich in 1960.

Source: www.theprintarkive.co.uk The Print Arkive. License: All Rights Reserved.

Colour in advertising

Source: www.theideaofthebook.com The Idea of the Book. License: All Rights Reserved.

Concert posters for the Tonhalle Gesellschaft Zurich

Source: www.theideaofthebook.com The Idea of the Book. License: All Rights Reserved.

A training system for the graphic designer

The Forest People is an ethnographic study of the Mbuti pygmies in the African Congo region, authored by the British-American anthropologist Colin M. Turnbull (1924–1994). First published by Simon and Schuster in 1961, this is the paperback edition, issued in 1962 in their Touchstone imprint. The cover was designed by John and Mary Condon, using tightly spaced Akzidenz-Grotesk against a posterized photograph printed in green and black.

Cover for Every Scene Needs A Center, the fifth album by indie pop band Tullycraft from Seattle, Washington, released in 2007 on Magic Marker Records.

The typography references the 1970s, with ITC Souvenir and very tight spacing. Design and illustration by the band’s lead guitarist Corianton Hale.

[More info on Discogs]

Lettering for Amsterdam “Bridge 162” which was renamed Saïdja en Adindabrug (“Saïdja and Adinda Bridge”) in 2006. Saïdja and Adinda are two characters from the novel Max Havelaar (1860) by Multatuli, a story about a story about corruption in the Dutch colonial rule of Java, the main island of what was to become the republic of Indonesia in later years.

The name of the bridge is set in Arial Black, with a customised lowered trema with round dots. Despite a lack of character especially when used in large sizes, Arial, like Helvetica, remains a popular choice for architectural lettering. I guess this is mostly motivated by laziness: Arial is at the start of the alphabetical list of fonts in design apps; all other architects do it; it looks neutral; Arial remains readable when stretched and/or applied in metal or concrete, and it’s available at for free.

Instead of Arial, a better and period-correct choice would have been Kurversbrug or VLNL Berlagebrug — both based on the iconic lettering used for many Amsterdam bridges in the first half of the 20th century. The original bridge alphabet was probably designed by Anton Kurvers around 1930, four years after Bridge 162 was built.

Cover of Hitchcock/Truffaut, a book by François Truffaut about Alfred Hitchcock, published in English in 1967. The use was spotted on Robert King’s website blog. In the post, he compares the first and later editions of the book, and the rather unnecessary adjustments made to the cover design for the later edition. The design of the cover is very much in keeping with the Modernist tradition of design, an objective design that foregrounds the main subjects of the book, set in the preferred typeface of early Modernist designers, Akzidenz Grotesk. The type is meticulously kerned and is set very tightly, taking advantage of the typeface’s design which allowed for such a tight setting. The mirroring of the two names echoes the fact that the book is a conversation between these two legendary film directors.

The design is by the iconic mid-century book jacket designers, and husband and wife team John and Mary Condon. Greg D’Onofrio and Steve Heller wrote about this design of this cover in their book, The Moderns: “One of their best-known jacket designs was for Hitchcock/Truffaut, an interview with Alfred Hitchcock by François Truffaut, which is a veritable bible for filmmakers. Their names spelled out in tightly kerned Akzidenz-Grotesk and delicately printed in silver on a black background, offers a classic example of typographic symbolism: the celebrated directors going head-to-head. Upon being sent the design comp, Truffaut handwrote on the flap, ‘Très magnifique! — Truffaut.’”

Wikipedia describes this book:

First published by Éditions Robert Laffont, it is based on a 1962 exchange between Hitchcock and Truffaut, in which the two directors spent a week in a room at Universal Studios talking about movies. After Hitchcock's death, Truffaut updated the book with a new preface and final chapter on Hitchcock's later films.

Love & Guilt & The Meaning of Life, Etc. by Judith Viorst. Published by Simon & Schuster, 1979. Cover design by Herb Lubalin, with illustrations by John Alcorn.

The typeface family used throughout the book – from dust jacket to title page and text – is ITC Benguiat, distinguished by its long, spikey serifs and the hooked ampersand. It’s set tightly spaced, as it was popular in the 1970s. The endpapers and section dividers show lines in lowercase italic letters, put on a dramatic angle.

Top image via DCMNTS, Scott Lindberg’s archive of important 20th century graphic design. He writes:

Herb Lubalin & John Alcorn. What a great combination!
Full page illustrations by Alcorn appear on every spread, opposite Lubalin’s robust typographic treatments. The cover is just frosting on the cake.

Designed by Ed Benguiat, ITC Benguiat was released in January 1978 by the International Typeface Corporation, an influential phototype manufacturer and the first independent licensor for typeface designers. The company was started in 1970 by Lubalin together with Aaron Burns and Edward Rondthaler of Photo-Lettering, Inc. (PLINC). Ed Benguiat, who had served as typographic design director of PLINC since 1962, was involved in ITC, too, eventually as Vice President.

In 1973, Benguiat partnered with Lubalin to launch Upper and Lowercase, The International Journal of Typographics, better known as U&lc. [Milton Glaser Design Study Center and Archives] Benguiat (the typeface) was advertised in U&lc, Vol. 5, No. 1, March 1978. John Alcorn’s illustrations were frequently featured in ITC’s acclaimed magazine, too, for example in Vol. 3, No. 3; Vol. 4, No. 4; and on the cover of Vol. 5, No. 2.

Nowadays, ITC Benguiat is best known for its use for the titles of the Netflix show Stranger Things (2016) and various movies by Quentin Tarantino.

The images below are from Tenth Letter of the Alphabet, an equally fantastic design resource maintained by Alex Jay.

Endpapers

Title page

“Love” part title

Illustrated text spread

“Guilt” part title

“The Meaning of Life, Etc.” part title

A poster typeface catalog from phototype supplier Hollenstein featuring a center graphic with Indigo Regular, Magic, Flower, and Kitsch. Read more about Indigo in this Use: Novum Gebrauchsgraphik, no. 6, 1972.

Hardcover, Beltz & Gelberg, 1977

Lollipop is one of the more than 100 books by Austrian writer Christine Nöstlinger (1936–2018). A graphic artist by trade, Nöstlinger turned to writing in 1970 with Die feuerrote Friederike (Fiery Frederica), which she illustrated herself.

The majority of Nöstlinger’s production is literature for children and for young people … She centres on the needs of children in her work, with an anti-authoritarian bent. She does not shy away from tackling difficult subjects like racism, discrimination and self-isolation.

Nöstlinger is considered one of the most influential writers of German children’s literature, and was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1984. In 2013, she received the inaugural Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, together with Maurice Sendak.

This book from 1977 is about an adolescent boy nicknamed Lollipop and his sorrows and woes. He has no dad, his older sister often picks quarrels with him, and he’s scared of dogs. Old grocer Otto is about his only friend. Lollipop falls in love with the beautiful Evelyn, but his pocket money is not enough to ask her out, so he starts to steal from his mom. Everytime the going gets tough, he turns to his beloved green lollipops, which seem to have magical powers.

The first edition is illustrated by Angelika Kaufmann (*1935), who studied at Vienna’s University of Applied Arts, just like Nöstlinger. The cover typography combines Pluto Outline (with yellow and green fill) and tightly spaced Herkules, set on a curve.

Cover of the audio version, Fontana Records, 1978

Paperback edition by Pocket Books, 1970

The Selling of the President 1968 is a non-fiction book written by American author Joe McGinniss and published by Trident Press in October, 1969. The book describes the marketing of Richard Nixon during the 1968 presidential campaign. It has been described as “a classic of political journalism” and a “classic of campaign reporting that first introduced many readers to the stage-managed world of political theater.” [Wikipedia]

Original hardcover edition, Trident Press / Simon & Schuster, 1969