Ragtime

From Paul Dini & Chip Kidd’s Batman Animated (1998):

These imaginatively rendered title cards were a high point of each Batman episode. While some (like “Harley’s Holiday” and “Time out of Joint”) were character portraits, most often the cards depicted an emotional impression of the given episode’s theme. According to Eric Radomski, who designed many of the cards, “Going with the overall retro-forties feel we were giving the show, we wanted to treat the episodes as mini-movies. The title cards allowed us to create great drama in a very subtle fashion. It was a process of trying to capture what the overall episode was, and not just show a scene or moment from it.”

Most of the title cards of Batman: The Animated Series’ first season (which first aired in 1992–1993) use fonts that were available from Letraset.

See also the post on the series’ logos.

Engravers Old English

Pendry Script

Rundfunk

Commercial Script and Compacta Italic

Pendry Script

Cable (Kabel) Light

Univers 49

Brody

Univers 49

Peignot Medium

Alpin Gothic

Plaza

Pendry Script and Compacta

Windsor Bold Outline

Compacta

Plaza

Peignot Medium

Brush Script

Microgramma Medium Extended

Mistral

Compacta Bold Outline

Univers 49

Goudy Handtooled

Mistral

ITC Benguiat

Brody

Univers 49

Plaza and Univers 49

Mistral

Laser

Univers 49

Stencil Bold

Univers 49

Univers 49

Papyrus

Berling Bold

Mistral

Mistral

Ragtime

Berling Bold

LCD Outline

Cloister Bold

Shatter

Helvetica Extra Light and Medium

Goudy Extra Bold

Freestyle Script and Flash

Plaza Inline

City Medium

Murray Hill Bold

Plaza and Univers 49

Ragtime

Tarragon

Compacta Outline

Titus Medium

Augustea Open

Cortez

Cover design for “Söldi/Fögli”, the new single of Clamö, released by the Pluggers records label.

Ensemble Nieuwe Theaterwerkers is a network created by and for theater students, emerging autodidacts, and recent graduates—a network for new theater makers. Comprising at least two and potentially all theater professionals within the field, the group consists of current and former students who are committed to engagement, bringing diverse perspectives, fostering connections, and uniting their strengths. Their aim is to cultivate a diverse and inclusive network that takes root in all directions, encompassing all ethnicities, genders, sexualities, social classes, and educational backgrounds within the theater sector.

Based on the colorful identity designed by Franziska Froebe, Max Gruson designed the website, including some exciting hover effects. The Ensemble was among the first users of Purple Haze to request single weights. Online tools like Adobe Express or Canva do not support variable fonts yet.

The logo on the hero page is reacting to mouse-over. Together with the gradation, following the cursor, it is exciting to play with.

The hover effect on the number 177 pushes Purple Haze to 900 on both axes, leading to an extrapolation. Font Spectrum endorses such use!

Daisy is a 16mm short film created by director David J Adams in late 2023, featuring model Daisy Parker, together with poems that she wrote and then read.

The graphics were designed by London-based creative studio and publisher Cash & Carry. The title is set in Plain Form's Ready Active, sporting a bold red and a slight three-dimensional effect, as if traced with lipstick – or written in blood. Credits and subtitles use Dinamo's Gaisyr Mono with its recognizable ‘butterfly’ serifs.

Numerals from a bold weight of NN Swinton are paired with NN Konrad for “Baillat”

Description of the project by Baillat Studio:

Drawing inspiration from the 9 lives of a cat, this calendar celebrates the 9th anniversary of Baillat Studio. The calendar spans the next 9 years (2024-2033) from July to June, and invites you to dive into a feline universe.

The design of the calendar uses a wide range of fonts. In addition to those mentioned in the image captions, this includes Awaria, Engin, Founders Grotesk, an unknown Heritage, Generation Mono, Glossy Display Millionaire, Montserrat, and Morion. These don’t seem to be visible in the included images and thus aren’t listed under “Typefaces”.

The numerals on the left are again from NN Swinton.

NN Swinton for the calendar, Brik for “Cat Lover”

“Cat Love” appears to be in Sharp Grotesk, “Baillat Studio” in Times New Roman Bold.

February is Banco month.

Page for July 2024 with NN Konrad and Rio Grande on the ribbons

Domino Mono (September), Para, and Hardy

The stencil face and the italic on the collar are yet unidentified [edit: see comments].

The Geneva-based queer film festival, Everybody’s Perfect, organized an exhibition titled The Perfect Guests. This exhibition was displayed on 60 billboards, stretching across 650-meter around Lac Léman, or Lake Geneva. It featured a wide range of filmmakers, actors, artists, and experts, all committed to advocating for positive representation of the LGBTQIA+ community.

The Perfect Guests exhibition took place throughout the month of September 2022. It showcased photographs by Camilo Agudelo, taken during the past four editions of the Everybody's Perfect Festival.

We were commissioned to design the exhibition poster and panel layouts, aligning them with the festival's graphic identity that would take place a few weeks later.

For the poster, we used a photo of Sandra Guldberg Kampp captured by Agudelo during the screening of the film Kød & Blod by Danish director Jeanette Nordahl. The close-up on her eyes engages and challenges the viewer. The text layout draws inspiration from movie posters, credits, and subtitle aesthetics. To create a feeling of motion and connect the photo exhibit with the film festival, parts of the dates and titles were intentionally blurred, akin to the effect of a moving camera. Additionally, we chose a mint Pantone color to contrast with the vibrancy of the photo and harmonize with the exhibition’s location at Lake Geneva.

These initial choices set the foundation for the visual communication, which extends to the overall festival identity happening later during the year (see the dedicated post). We used Grotta, created by Due Studio with a complementary font, Bw Nista Grotesk by Branding with Type.

Nothing More Than Murder (1949), 1991. Photo by Butch Martin.

Covers for a series of books by crime fiction writer Jim Thompson (1906–1977), published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard in the early 1990s.

Design by Keith Sheridan Associates. Title and author’s name are shown in Latin Wide, set in diagonal bands. The praise by Stephen King, Stanley Kubrick, and the New York Times is added in Helvetica breit fett.

The Killer Inside Me (1952), 1991. Photo by Barnaby Hall.

Savage Night (1953), 1991. Photo by Alesia Exum.

Recoil (1953), 1992. Photo by Barnaby Hall.

A Swell-Looking Babe (1954), 1991. Photo by Alesia Exum.

A Hell of a Woman (1954), 1990. Photo by Ken Shung.

After Dark, My Sweet (1955), 1990. Photo by Barnaby Hall.

The Getaway (1958), 1990

Pop. 1280 (1964), 1991. Photo by Barnaby Hall.

Poems from the Dark is the debut LP by Berlin-based artist Zylva. It was released in June 2023 on Squama. The sleeve was designed by Maximilian Schachtner, using an illustration by Carina Madsius on side A of the record (not shown), and a portrait by Manuel Nieberle.

The typeface on the front cover is EK Modena Extended Bold (with the alternate S) used with a stamp effect. Text on the back is set in EK Modena Mono.

[More info on Discogs]

In 2021, Yndi Da Silva (formerly know as Dream Koala) released her first LP under her real name: Noir Brésil. The record was a way to introduce her new musical direction as well as reconnecting with her personal roots, both French and Brazilian. Accompanying the project, a new visual identity for the artist was unveiled.

Imagined by Pauline Laudet and Amalia Laurent, the record cover is an eclectic collage of Yndi's face, paintings and illustrations by the two artists and animations stills from several students from the renowned animation school Les Gobelins (some of whom were eventually involved in producing musical clips for the record). All the written information from the record ise appearing on an obi strip, à la Japonais, designed by Alice Ito from H5 studio. It came in several limited variants (chrome, color gradients, transparent…) depending on where the record was distributed. On the obi, while the album title is set in Voyage, YNDI’s name, the tracklisting and credits are all set in SangBleu OG Serif. SangBleu OG was also used for subsequent promotional material following the release like tour announcement.

SangBleu OG Serif is part of the SangBleu OG family, available from Swiss Typefaces.

CD cover design

CD cover design

Vinyl record cover design

Vinyl record cover design

Released in 1999, one year after his sensational debut Unrest, Opa*q is the second album of Rei Harakami, and described as a masterpiece of the Japanese techno scene.

The cover was designed by Masashi Iwasaki, with a photograph by Tomoko Iwata. The typeface is the Black weight of Helvetica Rounded (or maybe Bitstream’s version named Swiss 721 Rounded), used in all lowercase characters, with stretched proportions and a glow effect.

[More info on Discogs]

Mes Rêves M’épuisent (“My Dreams Are Exhausting Me”) is the latest EP release by Cashmire.

The album art was designed by Arthur Connault, using DaVinci by Virgile Flores and photography by Cyril Gaborit.

This book is the catalog accompanying the exhibition Get Life / Love’s Work by British artist Ed Atkins. It was shown by the New Museum in New York City from June 30 to October 3, 2021. The publication includes texts by Erika Balson and Mark Leckey.

The cover shows a face from close up, taken from a video shown in the exhibition. The artist already worked with this high-definition computer-generated character and his close-up face in video print before (see The Worm, 2021). The type simply is in Neue Helvetica, a classic choice for contemporary art books (cf. the Peter Cain monographs), in white caps at the bottom center.

From the publisher:

Over the past decade, Atkins has created a complex body of work that considers the relationship between the corporeal and the digital, the ordinary and the uncanny, through high-definition computer-generated (CG) animations, theatrical environments, elliptical writings, and syncopated sound montages. With these filmic and text-based artworks, Atkins tracks forms of feeling, living, and communicating hidden behind or curtailed by technological representation, which unfold into sensitive and often somber narratives.

At the New Museum, Atkins will premiere a new project that focuses on the ways bodies and technologies are intertwined, particularly in the field of digital communication and telepresence. As always in Atkins’s work, technology is analyzed as a theoretical and even allegorical interrogation of itself, rather than in any literal terms.

EnKō Beauty was created by successful makeup artist Caylin McDonie, who has risen to fame through social media, renowned for her avant-garde looks.

The name EnKō is a word originating in Japanese folklore, meaning water dragon, and was originally inspired by a beauty-look. Handmade from scratch, the custom logotype and typography in Rabbit Hole Display was created by Hugmun Studio (@hugmun.studio) founder Tomasz Pawluk a.k.a Boafff (@boafff). Hugmun Studio comments:

Each surreal letter flows, hinting at the folklore origins feels relevant to makeup, art, and freehand flowing lines as we see in Caylin’s artistry. Metallic, holographic, 3D, and chrome also play a large role in the brand identity. Shifting and flowing with light and color like the multi tones found in the eye shadows.

The packaging was created by Marceli Printery with debossing and black letterpress printing on Carte à Parfum paper by Fedrigoni. The complimentary Sometimes Times Italic by BoulevardLAB provides a lighter but equally intricate contrast to Rabbit Hole Display. These are offset by Optimo’s sans serif Plain.

Тяга. Всемирная история зависимости (Tyaga. Vsemirnaya istoriya zavisimosti) is the title of the Russian edition of Carl Erik Fisher’s The Urge. Our History of Addiction, translated by Evgenia Sapgir (Евгения Сапгир). The softcover was designed by Maxim Balabin and published by Individuum.

Dust jacket for The Unauthorized Biography of Kenneth Anger, written by Bill Landis and published by HarperCollins in 1995. From the inner flap:

Known worldwide for his bestselling Hollywood Babylon books, Kenneth Anger is an underground filmmaker whose tremendous influence has been acknowledged by by directors as diverse as Stephen Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Dennis Hopper. As the father and most highly regarded member of American cinema's avant-garde, Anger made three films now considered masterpieces: Fireworks, Scorpio Rising, and Lucifer Rising. More than forty years later his aesthetic ripple is still being felt in contemporary mediums such as rock videos.

Designer Chip Kidd spells out the artist’s pseudonym in crammed letters from Franklin Gothic – it’s either the Condensed, widened, or the regular width, squeezed. In combination with the color red, this adds up to a typographic visualization of the the word’s meaning. For the smaller text including the subtitle and the author’s name, Kidd opted for ITC Franklin Gothic, Victor Caruso’s 1980 revision and expansion of Benton’s classic, distinguished by a larger and higher ear in g, among other things. These lines are set with very loose letterspacing, further increasing the claustrophobic expression of “Anger”.

Kenneth Anger died earlier this month at the age of 96. See the obituaries by the New York Times and the Guardian. RIP.

I’m a Stranger Too! is the debut release by folk/blues singer-songwriter Christopher Smither (b. 1944). It came out in 1970 on Poppy Records, a label founded by Kevin Eggers (1943–2020, later of Tomato Records) that lasted from around 1967 to 1974.

The cover design is by Milton Glaser, who also takes credit for the poppy flower on the record label. The wide caps are shown by Photo-Lettering as Push Pin Art Deko, without individual credits, but with Milton Glaser’s name in the sample text. Chances are that Glaser designed them specifically for an exhibition poster earlier in 1970, and that Photo-Lettering subsequently made the alphabet available for general use. Unlike Baby Teeth – which was shown on the same page of PLINC’s 1971 catalog – Push Pin Art Deko wasn’t a big hit. This album cover is the only other use of it that I’m aware of.

See also the “Poppy Gives Thanks” poster. Designed by Glaser for a label night in 1969, it’s among the earliest uses of his Glaser Stencil.

[More info on Discogs]

Detail showing the overlapping letters filled in six colors

The back cover reveals Smither’s face that’s obscured on the front. Track list and credits are set in Futura

The record label with Glaser’s illustrated poppy and text printed in Helvetica

From Days Off:

2022’s Greatest Flops is the first compilation album of failures. A limited edition vinyl containing eight of the major flops of the last year. 12 inches of high decadence (insert a sad face here). From Ukraine’s invasion to Ye's latest statements. From Boris Johnson's resignation to Shakira's tax evasion scandal. 8 flops. 8 tracks. 8 sound atmospheres to define the last 365 days.

Greatest Flops was designed by The Royal Studio, using Mineral Solid by Benoît Bodhuin, together with Gerstner-Programm FSL (Forgotten Shapes) and LL Moonbase (Lineto). Screen printing by Julio Cubillos.

Hideous Bastard is the debut solo album of Oliver Sim, best known as songwriter, bassist, and vocalist of The xx. The album cover was designed by Vasilis Marmatakis. The Greek graphic designer is well known for his minimalist posters for Yorgos Lanthimos’ movies. In this horrific artwork, Sim’s face is “slashed” by the letters that make up his name and that of the album.

The photography is by Casper Sejersen. Art direction by Sarah-Jayne Todd, creative direction by Rana Toofanian. The album was released by Young.

[More info on Discogs]

When announcing the cast of Dune (2021), Warner Bros. released this poster series highlighting the film’s star-studded cast.

Character names are highlighted in Linotype Didot, and actors’ names are in Futura. Type is very loosely letterspaced across the actors’ faces.

The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian television series created by Bruce Miller, based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel of the same name. It premiered on Hulu on April 26, 2017. The font used for the logo is Champion Gothic Featherweight by Hoefler & Co.