Jhambo Ink, a boutique publisher in London, brought out a limited edition in 1,000 hand-numbered copies of a double book bringing together Caroll’s Alice's Adventures Under Ground and Alice In Wonderland. Ana Santiago of Index designed the two books joined by their spines in a dos-à-dos binding. The book is richly illustrated by Brazilian artist Zansky.

While the box containing the book is text-less, the covers are exclusively typographic, showcasing Le Murmure in a playful elongated and top-aligned layout. The font is used throughout the book in both its normal shape but also often vertically elongated (without distortions) or horizontally stretched (with distortions). It's accompanied by Viskjø doing a great job for inter-titles in all caps as well as for the text of the stories themselves.

As part of the travelling exhibition Dans les règles de l’Art, organized by the Musée Mobile (MuMo) in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou, we designed a card game featuring over 60 original illustrations. It was specially created to engage exhibition visitors, particularly young audiences, by encouraging them to explore the artworks in a playful manner. Each card offers an activity, a question, or a reflection related to the presented works, allowing participants to creatively engage with artistic concepts.

Beer package design for the Duckhoo Sunseng restaurant in Seoul. The beer label design was inspired by mahjong, commonly played in Hong Kong. The duck illustration is by Inhyuk Jo.

Euchre is a trick-taking card game played in Michigan and the surrounding Great Lakes region. It is usually played with a normal deck of playing cards but specialty decks exist. I found this vintage deck at the Value World thrift store in Warren, MI in 2003. It includes two 7–A Euchre decks, one red back and one blue back, two sets of 6+4 score cards, and a tri-fold booklet of rules.

Editor’s note: This post was first published in November 2014. It was revised with additional info and images in April 2024.

Cantrell A Priori (CAP) is a product line by The Gentleman Wake, a producer of luxury playing cards. Together with designer Kevin Cantrell, they produce themed decks. The Goldsmith tells the story of Johannes Gutenberg. The design uses two typefaces from Typeverything: Cottonhouse and Misfits.

Box cover art

Bill & Ted’s Riff in Time is a board game based on the eponymous comedic sci-fi franchise that has spanned from 1989 to present day. The artwork and design was done by Warcradle Studios members Brandon Beren, Jon Cartwright, James Ginn, and Michael Watson, with art direction by Roberto Cirillo.

Evoking the aesthetic of the posters for Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, the graphic design for the game features a retrofied Cortado, set in an orange and pink, outline and drop shadow combo, as well as in extra-emphatic all caps for call-out text. “Riff in Time” and secondary text are set in Agenda, “one of the iconic typefaces of the nineties” according to Adobe.

Game board

“Bogus” and “Excellent” lettering is pulled from the posters for the first two films.

Text in Agenda Extra Condensed with numbers in Cortado

Radium mager and fett on the case of a pack of playing cards, advertising the Revue brand of cigarettes by Sulima.

According to Cigabox.de, Tabak- und Cigarettenfabrik Sulima F.L. Wolff GmbH was established in Dresden, Germany, in 1871. It was acquired by Jasmatzi AG before 1914, which in turn was taken over by Reemtsma in 1925. Sulima was still doing business under that name in 1924.

The secondary typefaces, a compressed grotesk and a Romanisch-like roman, are shown with too little detail to identify them reliably.

See also this invoice from 1924 for another example of both weights of Radium used together.

The cards were produced by a division of the Vereinigte Stralsunder Spielkarten-Fabriken Act.-Ges. in Altenburg, Sachsen-Anhalt.

52 illustrative playing cards, made to always win…or lose.

Laser cut and UV print on 1/16″ plexiglass, using IKANSEEYOUALL from Swiss Typefaces. Made during the Co-Works workshop led by Professor Angela Torchio at RISD in Spring 2019.

Smokin’ Aces Cannabis logo design

This logo was created for Smokin’ Aces Dispensary, California. The design features four aces playing cards surrounded by green smoke over a metallic green with gold accented marijuana leaf design. The Smokin' Aces is overlaid using Rubens in metallic diamond plate textured black and gold as well as purple and gold lettering. The word “Cannabis” underneath the main logo lettering utilizes the script font Ruthligos.

On this packaging design, Ruthligos was replaced with Coronet. The sans used for smaller type is unidentified.

The Oracle Cards of Design Manifestos is a project that aims to open up your imagination and help you through some of the most frequently experienced forms of creative block.

Every time you refresh the page, it will offer a card with a phrase from an important 20th or 21st century design manifesto. It may come in the form of a streamline recommendation or vague meditation—consider it and try to interpret it as a clue for your design process.

Before OH no’s Cheee, there was Dave West’s Banjo. A variation on the French Antique genre, with all weight allocated to the top and bottom, Banjo is distinguished by its ballooning terminals. It was drawn for Photo-Lettering, Inc. and is shown in their 1967 Alphabet Yearbook, in two styles: Banjo Bangles is adorned by small spikes on the top and bottom of each stem.

David Klein (1918–2005) designed and illustrated numerous posters for Howard Hughes’ Trans World Airlines and their “Fly TWA” campaign. This one, probably from the late 1960s, shows the temptations of mid-century Las Vegas, integrated into a queen playing card.

In 2010 Mitja Miklavčič made an official revival of West Banjo for House Industries’ digital incarnation of Photo-Lettering. It goes by the names of Banjo Playbill or Plinc Banjo. Fiddle Sticks NF (Nick’s Fonts, 2007) is an earlier, inofficial interpretation.

There currently is an original copy up for sale on eBay.

Detail with David Klein’s signature.

Detail with the Fly TWA logo.

Skat, Mau Mau or Doppelkopf (three card games) — with this deck of cards you always have an ace up your sleeve. Through 32 finely printed cardboards (59×91mm), dull family evenings can be spiced up and new friends made. Sitting comfortably together, following rules and wisecracking. Lovely!

The design is inspired by a deck of cards designed in 1906 by Wiener Werkstätte-related artist Editha Moser. Formula Condensed by Pangram Pangram is used throughout.

Available from B-Lage.

Probe is a board game for 1–4 players, “introduced in the 1960s by Parker Brothers. It is reminiscent of the simple two-person game Hangman, whose object is to guess a word chosen by another player by revealing specific letters. Probe […] introduces additional game elements that increase the levels of both skill and chance. Like Hangman, each player has a secret chosen word. But unlike Hangman, the game ends when the last word, not the first word, is revealed. All players remain in the game until the end. It was created by Ted Leavitt and licensed by him to Parker Brothers.” [Wikipedia]

The Probe game pictured here was released in 1976. It features (a) Bookman Swash for the primary logo, using swashes for the P, r, and b. The words “Parker Brothers Game of Words” above the main logo are set in ITC Avant Garde Gothic Extra Light, and its Regular weight is used on the bottom of the box.

We created this custom one-time use logo and these eight-foot tall banners for an event for the Randall Morris Foundation, which benefited one of our favorite charities, The Burned Children Recovery Foundation.

This Celebrity Poker event featured NFL football players, along with other sports celebrities, and was held in an automobile showroom.

For the main event logo, we selected Advertising Script. Sometimes the flair of a letter will jump out, and for this, you can’t beat the lowercase t.

The word “benefiting” was set with Capistrano BF. Because RMF was an umbrella charity, and we felt such a strong connection to BCRF, Capistrano acted as a lead-in to draw attention the final beneficiary, The Burned Children Recovery Foundation, which was set in Neutraface, one of our all-time favorites. “Poker Tournament” is in Bank Gothic.

If you happen to come across this art by browsing, we’d love it if you considered donating directly to the Burned Children Recovery Foundation.

The foundation sends children that are burn survivors to summer camp each year. Their counselors are firefighters. Michael Mathis, a burn survivor, and his wife, Kathleen, are the founders of this amazing organization.

“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.

The logo for the game Call to Adventure is based on the typeface Maestrale by Catharsis Fonts, with heavy modification. “Call to” is set in a yet unidentified serif typeface. Other information, and the game cards, use Eulipia (Delve Fonts).

This instructional booklet/poster was made as a personal project for my Kabbalah workshop. After having designed a deck of kabbalistic cards, I developed this manual to go with it. Explained are the preparation prior to a Tarot roll, how to perform the astrological roll, and the meaning of the 78 arcana. 15 copies were printed for workshop attendees on 80gr Bookcel paper.

The open Masqualero Groove and the solid Masqualero are used for titles and headings. Text is set in Alegreya and Alegreya Sans.

From GBH.london:

MOB is not a normal hotel. MOB is analogue. MOB is bold. MOB is inclusive. MOB is resourceful. MOB is simple. It's a place of genuine and original hospitality.

MOB’s mission is to create an affordable, social, and stimulating experience. The hotel is a hub for the local community. Inspired by the teachings of Karl Marx, it’s a place that plays with conventions, challenging the norm at every turn. Not a place to stay holed up in your room, but a place to explore.

The MOB Hotel brand only uses Raisonné Demibold. The typeface’s playfulness enhances tactile experiences. It's both utilitarian and charming, speaking to MOB's ethos of “By The People, Of The People.”

A fun and versatile extension of the branding was found in ticket rolls. The tickets are an easy and tactile way for staff to interact with guests by means of applying different stamps. The stamps range from business cards to free hotel vouchers and check lists, or just a thoughtful message.

The Minimalist Deck: Helvetica is a modern deck of bicycle playing cards, designed in Helvetica.

The deck can be found on Kickstarter.

Game box.

Mille Bornes is a French version of an American card game that's been around in one version or another for more than a hundred years. The illustrations shown here are from the French “edition spécial” of 1960. See also the 1960 Parker Brothers edition.

Cards.