Hopeless is the title of a wallpaper poster made by Austrian graphic designer Arno Kathollnig.

The speech bubble on the sad woman’s image – a riff on Roy Lichtenstein’s Hopeless painting from 1963, which in turn is derived from a panel drawn by Tony Abruzzo for the story “Run For Love!” in Secret Hearts no. 83 (November 1962) – uses HVD Comic Serif (HvD Fonts). Text on the right side is in Bumper, the extra-heavy-duty industrial sans serif also made by HvD Fonts, while smaller speech bubbles on the right side of it are using Comic Sans.

Outer cover of New Paltz, New Paltz

New Paltz, New Paltz by Mike Powell is the first book published by Double Negative. It’s a restless bildungsroman set in New York City concerned with everyday life, its frustrations and joys alike. The book is short and bittersweet, inspired by poetry as much as prose, especially the frank absurdism of writers like Charles Portis and James Tate. The style is simple but wonky, full of false starts and anti-climaxes—“clumsy beauty,” the book calls it.

The design is a response to this and the many touchpoints shared by author and designer: Keith Shore’s blobby illustration, Lorraine Louie’s yuppie surrealism, Susan Kare’s iconic desktop logos, Andy Warhol’s jazz album covers, and New York City parking signs, which inform the selection of ClearviewHwy and Highway Gothic.

The colors—a dirty purple, yellow, and gray—come directly from the book’s language: the “dim yellow lighting” of a dive bar, “a purple-gray mastiff” at the dog park, and the “yellow and purple flowers” a landscape architecture firm had planted in a city park to try to rewild the city with native plans, giving it a “calculated wilderness laid out in the middle of the city, like an apology for everything we had built around it,” which of course includes the numerous grays of concretes and buildings.

Outer front cover of New Paltz, New Paltz

Interior cover spread for New Paltz, New Paltz

Interior spread for New Paltz, New Paltz

Bunker is a recreation of the original sketchbook by Gary Goldstein, lovingly and meticulously scanned, designed and reproduced by Tal Solomon Vardy in an inspiring act of love and generosity. See more images on the website of Petach Tikva Museum of Art.

Front cover

Talk Talk is of course the British band with Mark Hollis who were active between 1981 and 1991. The Party's Over was their first album, released in 1982. For the 1997 re-issues of their first four albums, the covers were slightly changed to have a matching design.

All their albums have a very stylish design with a colourful drawing and simple but recognisable lettering and layout, which was even stronger in this series of four re-issues.

For the covers of these 1997 re-issues, Univers Ultra Condensed was used. The band name and album title are in all-capitals on the front, back, and spine. The back cover have the track listing in Univers Ultra Condensed as well, but now in title case.

Univers Ultra Condensed is used even more. The inside of the booklet also has the band line-up, the band name and album title plus the year of release, and all song titles above the lyrics in all-capitals. Below each of the lyrics are the names of the people who wrote the lyrics and music, which are in title case. The text “lyrics reproduced by kind permission” is also in title case.

The drawing on the front was made by James Marsh. The original design was done by Bill Smith, the artwork for this re-issue by Rob Crane.

[More info on Discogs]

Back cover and spines

Page 2 and 3 of the booklet

From Wikipedia:

I’ll Cry If I Want To is the debut album of Lesley Gore. The album included her hit singles “It’s My Party” and its follow-up, “Judy’s Turn to Cry”. The album was rushed out after “It’s My Party” became a big hit, and the songs are mostly about crying, linking to the hit single’s first line “It's my party and I’ll cry if I want to”, incorporating songs with titles such as “Cry”, “Just Let Me Cry” and “Cry and You Cry Alone”.

[More info on Discogs]

Front cover of the digital release

Agusa are a Swedish psychedelic rock band whose debut album was released in 2014. Ekstasis is a live album, recorded in Rome in April 2018 and released in December 2018 on vinyl and in digital form.

The cover was designed by Robin Gnista. The design was used for concert posters and T‑shirts, and it is hard to say for which of these the design was used first.

The cover uses Jojo for the artist name. It is also used on the back cover of the vinyl release, with the letters skewed in several directions to follow the design it surrounds (the shape with four corners, two triangles and two half-circles was used on the back cover of their debut album).

On the digital release, “Live in Rome” is added in the script typeface Wolf in the City.

On the vinyl release, the text “Ekstasis Live in Rome” is done in Blippo, and this is used for the spine as well.

Check out the band on Bandcamp and Facebook.

[More info on Discogs]

Front cover of the LP

Back cover of the LP

Official flyer for the party

In September 2019, a party was held in Barranquilla, Colombia, celebrating Love and Friendship Day (21 Sept.). A friend who was going to play music, asked me to make the flyer. The concept: something like “Cry ass.”

In the Colombian Caribbean we have a qualifier for that situation in which you have already broken up with your partner but you are still there, searching for them and insisting: being a crybaby.

This is how the concept for this party was born, and what better solution to avoid being embarrassed than instead of being intense, is better go to twerk and cry until you get down at the disco.

At a time when reggaeton was facing changes in perception and a certain empowerment on the part of more alternative sectors, we thought about making the design more complex with less conventional resources: resorting to classic paintings mixed with current graphics.

So we take a fragment from "The Descent" (Circa 1443) and a frame from the video “Lyk Dis from NxWorries” by Anderson.Paak & Knxwledge (2018), with illustrations by @Rhymezlikedimez.

Llorateca’s logo.

El Descendimiento by Rogier van der Weyden (before 1443)

Still from the video “Lyk Dis from NxWorries” by Anderson.Paak & Knxwledge (2018)

RxYxO of Coldrain wearing a “Wish You Were Here” top

Killstar are an alternative fashion and lifestyle brand with global distribution.

Killstar created the “Wish You Were Here” design which was featured on a range of clothing items including T-shirts, tank tops, and kimono tops. A large element of the design is the phase which has been set in the typeface Bonez by Bonez Designz.

Over the years a few rock stars have also been spotted wearing items in the design.

A slightly squeezed phototype version of Salut (Klingspor, 1931) in all-lowercase letters, for the cover of an album of instrumental country music by guitarist Jimmy Bryant (1925–1980), released on Imperial Records in 1966. Art direction by Woody Woodward, with photography by Ken Kim.

[More info on Discogs]

In Franklin Gothic, the letter O and the numeral 0 are similar, but not quite identical. This ad asks to dial “O” (for operator), when technically one had to enter the numeral zero. Also note the top-heavy opening quotation mark, sometimes referred to as sign painters’ quotes.

Of all the important things your child should learn, there’s one he should learn right away.

That’s how to dial “O” when he needs help in a hurry and doesn’t know the number. Because the telephone operator is a friend who wants to help and, what’s more important, can help in an emergency.

It’s important. It may even be critical. Because a frightened, crying child’s ability to dial “O” could save a life. Your child’s life. Maybe yours.

Tell your child not to be afraid to call. After all, 100,000 times a day, the sick, the injured and the frightened dial “O” for help. We know handling emergency calls is too important a job to learn it on the job. So our operators learn in practice sessions, where they receive simulated calls. How to get an ambulance. How to alert the fire department. How to contact medical help.

Our operators not only learn how to get the right help in a hurry but, what’s more, they know the incalculable value of staying on the line, reassuring the caller until that help arrives.

Of course, the extra time and training that operators receive in order to handle emergency calls costs extra money. But it’s worth it. Because you know there’s always help on the other end of your telephone line if you dial “O.”

AT&T and your local Bell Company.

“54321” is a single by Omar S featuring Desire, released in February 2022 on his FXHE Records. The black-and-white cover features Buxom and ITC Avant Garde Gothic, the latter with two of its sloping alternates, and both with eroded letterforms.

[More info on Discogs]

Source: www.abebooks.com Book ’Em. License: All Rights Reserved.

First edition of the thriller novel by Dean Koontz, published by Pocket Books in 1981 under the pen name Leigh Nichols. From the back:

It is a year since Tina Evans lost her little boy Danny in a tragic accident … a year since she began the process of forgetting, of trying to go on. But today this shocking message appeared on the blackboard in Danny's room:
NOT DEAD HELP ME
Was it someone’s grim joke? The tangible evidence of her own tormented unconscious? Or something … more?

The font used by cover designer Cathy Carucci is some phototype version from the De Vinne/Romana genre. It’s neither Hawthorn, PLINC’s Romana, Headliners’ neo-Romana, nor ITC Bernase Roman. Denver (a.k.a. De Vinne Serial) and Basta Display come close, but aren’t a match either (and also are unlikely candidates, as their availability was chiefly limited to Western Europe). My best bet is Devinne Black as carried by Lettergraphics. Unfortunately I have only a limited sample to compare against. If you want to approximate this style with digital fonts, I strongly recommend Roslindale which is available in variable font format.

Source: www.abebooks.com Chamblin Bookmine. License: All Rights Reserved.

The first printing of this paperback edition came with a die cut, revealing the eye printed on the first page of the interior. You can see that the crop is slightly different in each of the shown copies.

Source: www.abebooks.com Far North Collectible Books. License: All Rights Reserved.

For the poster of the documentary Ecce Ojo directed by Iñès Compan, Bureau 205 used the typefaces Heliuum (Damien Gautier) and Cosimo (Matthieu Cortat). Both are distributed by 205TF.