Source: www.ebay.com littlewingrecords (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Holiday for Swing is the fifth volume in MWM’s series of swing albums by the Main Stream Power Band. The previous releases are shown on the back cover (see below), two of which have been featured on Fonts In Use before.

The outline/multiline face used for the title is Monika. It’s either a bold weight or a modified version, with some of the lines rendered heavier. Monika was drawn by Monika Hartmann and issued by French phototype company Hollenstein in 1970.

Source: magazines.iaddb.org IADDB. License: All Rights Reserved.

A sample of Monika as shown in Modern Publicity, 1971. Scan courtesy of IADDB.

Source: www.ebay.com littlewingrecords (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

A list of typefaces named after their woman designer

There are plenty of typefaces bearing female names, and myriads named after their male designers. However, there are only very few faces that bear the name of their woman designer, like Monika does. Do women feel less of an urge to immortalize their name in their creations?

The earliest one is Colwell Handletter by Elizabeth Colwell (ATF, 1916), followed by Maria Ballé’s Ballé-Initialen (Bauer, 1920s). Elisabeth Friedländer’s typeface was originally to be named Friedländer-Antiqua. Released in 1937, Bauer eventually named it Elisabeth (spelled with z for markets abroad), since Friedländer, a recognisably Jewish name, was inadvisable after Hitler came to power in 1933.

Bannikova (Polygraphmash, 1946–51) is named after Galina Bannikova. Thomas-Schrift by Friedel Thomas was issued by Typoart posthumously in 1958. It’s not clear if the name was approved by Thomas. In 1969, Christine Lord designed Lord Lower Case Linked, but it was renamed to Oxford for the release with Face Photosetting. The “Via” in Via Face Don (Mecanorma, c. 1980) stands for Silvia Trenker. More obviously, there’s Calvert by Margaret Calvert (Monotype, 1980). Rosemary Sassoon might be the first woman to give her name to a whole series of fonts (Club Type, 1990s). ITC’s long-standing policy to have the first release named after the designer brought ITC Zemke Hand (1997) by Deborah Zemke and ITC Weber Hand (1999) by LisaBeth Weber. There’s also ITC Kahana (2004) by Teri Kahan (which was preceded by four other ITC releases by the same designer).

Claudia Kipp and Nina Lee Storm chose their family names for FF Kipp (FontFont, 1993) and Storm Sans (Monotype, 2000) respectively, and Ksenia Galantzan and Veronika Grüger their given names for Ksenia MF (Masterfont, 2000) and Veronika (Linotype, 2004). Natalia Vasilyeva designed Natali Script, Nat Vignette (2000), Nat Grotesk (2007), and Nat Flight (2009) for ParaType. 2018 saw the release of Gudrun Zapf von Hesse’s Hesse Antiqua (originally made in 1947).

That’s still less than twenty. Do you know of any others? Let us know in a comment.

A Date With Swing is the follow-up release to Memories in Swing (1977). Designer Robert Chlad maintained the red and black colors and varied the graphic theme of concentric bands. He again used big caps from 1970s typefaces with an Art Deco influence. This time it’s Mick Chave’s Marvin and Tom Carnase’s ITC Busorama. The former underwent a few modifications: E got a round shape — like Busorama —, H was embellished with a curved crossbar. The horizontals in S and G were lengthened for a more blocky setting.

Marvin here was obviously selected as an extrabold equivalent of the light Busorama, or vice versa. See also Marvin paired with Desdemona on another German record cover from the 1970s.

This is Letraset Plaza and Plaza Inline, designed in 1975 by Alan Meeks. The typeface was initially named Letraset Playboy. There are several digital versions – some of them come in many unsolicited variants. Scangraphic’s seems to be the only one to cover the Inline style.

Memories in Swing was recorded in September 1977 at Studio Walldorf, Frankfurt. The orchestra was arranged and conducted by Heinz Schönberger.

Record sleeve by courtesy of Ulla.