Lincoln Center’s second annual Summer for the City is utilizing OH no Type Co.’s Obviously family on their website, socials, and on site at the program locations.

Summer for the City features “hundreds of free events and thousands of artists in celebration of the vibrant cultural communities of NYC.”

The wordmark is in Trim Poster by Letters from Sweden. In addition to Obviously for the event headlines, the website heavily features the font Karla designed by Jonny Pinhorn.

Franklin Gothic as used by Milton Glaser. This poster was designed for Dionne Warwick’s debut performance at the Philharmonic Hall at New York’s Lincoln Center on September 25, 1966. From 1stDibs:

With backing by a 24-piece orchestra led by composer Burt Bacharach and support from Anthony and The Imperials, Warwick wowed the near capacity audience with showstoppers “Who Can I Turn To,” “Don't Make Me Over,” “People” and “Somewhere.” “When it came to emotion-packed, soulful interpretations of ballads,” Billboard magazine reported the following week, “Miss Warwick was second to none.” An example of this poster is held in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC.

See more posters designed by Glaser for the Lincoln Center.

Detail

Detail

The Jazz at Lincoln Center website pairs two condensed types for most of their content. Tungsten (Hoefler & Co.) is used in all caps for headlines and navigation, paired with the narrow width of National 2 (Klim Type Foundry). A page dedicated to a series of concerts with Charlie Parker uses Central Avenue (Colophon) our headlines.

Milton Glaser designed a number of posters for concerts organized by Gary Keys at Lincoln Center Philharmonic Hall. He often used his own typefaces, like Baby Fat for Simon & Garfunkel or Baby Teeth for Mahalia Jackson.

For Stevie Wonder’s concert on September 26, 1969, he went with a typeface designed by his partner at Push Pin Studios, Seymour Chwast. The obese sans with rounded corners is named Chwast Blimp. It’s shown in PLINC’s One Line catalog (1971) in three variants; A (with graded fill), Open (outlined), and C (solid). Chwast himself had used the Open for a Judy Garland concert poster in 1968, with glyphs filled in alternating colors. Glaser employed the solid variant, in reverse. Set on an angle, Stevie Wonder’s name is integrated into the image, doing double duty as the reflections in his sunglasses, and echoing the artist’s bright grin. Stevie Wonder was supported by Hugh Masekela (here misspelled “Masakela”). Offset lithograph, 23″×36.5″.

Milton Glaser’s poster for an Easter Sunday concert by American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson (1911–1972) was printed in two versions — one facing right and the other facing left — so that the two could be shown side-by-side to create a rainbow.

Poster for Hugh Masekela’s concert at Philharmonic Hall, presented by Gary Keys & Del Shields. Copies are available from Milton Glaser’s website.

On 12 May 1967, South African jazz musician Hugh Masekela played Philharmonic Hall at Lincoln Center, New York City. The concert poster was designed by Milton Glaser. It depicts Masekela standing with his trumpet in hand, in a centered arrangement framed by stepped lines. The silhouette is filled with various patterns and ornaments, including stripes, dots, more stepped lines, and a fig leaf. The poster is printed in two colors. A third dark tone is added by overprinting red and green. As an eye-catcher, Glaser put a big smile on Masekela’s otherwise featureless solid black face. The typeface used for the artist’s name is a rarely seen style from Glaser’s own Baby Teeth. This variant with curved notches — and a likewise smiling ‘E’ — is shown as Glaser Baby Teeth Baroque in a 1971 catalog by Photo-Lettering, Inc. It can very well be that it was designed specifically for this poster.

The design was later adapted for Introducing Hedzoleh Soundz, the fifteenth studio album by Masekela, recorded in Lagos, Nigeria in July 1973. When folded out, the front and back cover of the album show the silhouette from head to knees. The drawing is not a direct extract from the poster, but has been redone. There are a few small differences, see e.g. the fingers, the angles of the lines on the bottom right, or the shape of the ornament on the chest. The color palette here has been extended to red, gold and green. The inner gatefold is printed in a single red color and repeats some of the ornaments.

Hugh Masekela passed away today, aged 78.

Front and back cover of Introducing Hedzoleh Soundz, Blue Thumb Records, 1973.

Inner gatefold with track listing and credits.

On 22 January 1967, Simon & Garfunkel performed at Philharmonic Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. For the poster, Milton Glaser put both musicians literally on a pedestal, and gave their iconic silhouettes the same three-dimensional treatment as he used for the characters in his (Glaser) Baby Fat — illustration follows typeface, for an inimitable graphic gesamtkunstwerk. In his 1973 monograph, Glaser confirms that the typeface came first: “The letterforms of Babyfat […] led to the illustrative representation of the performers; usually the sequence is the reverse.”

Original copies of the poster go on eBay for a couple hundred dollars. The music can be had for less: A recording of the concert was released in 2002 as Live from New York City, 1967. Baby Fat is not available in digital form, but there is Buxom, an adaptation of the Black style, made by Fotostar/Facsimile Fonts in c.1970, and Keepon Truckin NF, a revival made by Nick Curtis in 2007. URW’s digital version of Buxom comes closest to the Outline style that is used here.

Detail showing the chromatic treatment of the letterforms, with slightly misaligned registration and some extra blue on the bottom — genuinely handmade!

The handbill uses the same design as the poster, but leaves the type without color fill.

Phillip Meggs’ History of Graphic Design claims this poster was published around 1960, but also says Chwast Blimp was published in 1970. Ten years is a long time. Something is off — probably the poster date — as Garland performed at Lincoln Center on this date in 1968. MoMA confirms the 1968 date.

The other type is also a puzzle: mostly Helvetica, but with an upside-down ‘S’ and a random straight-legged (Standard?) ‘R’ stuck in there.