Trans World Airlines (TWA)

Nestor Amaral and His Continentals – Holiday in … album series

Thu, 26 Dec 2024 10:06:00 +0000

Photo(s) by Bart Solenthaler on Flickr.

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Bart Solenthaler and tagged with “filmotypezion”. License: All Rights Reserved.

Holiday in Italy features a photo of the Forum Romanum and an all-caps setting of Filmotype Zion. From the back cover:

Nestor was born and raised in the industrial city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, which is heavily populated by the Italian people. It was quite natural that he should grow to love the music of Italy. In this album he is working with a small combination featuring himself on the violin, guitar, and that most typical of Italian instruments, the mandolin.

[More info on Discogs]

Nestor Amaral (1913–1962) was a Brazilian musician, composer and singer who also appeared in several films. In 1957, Hollywood-based budget label Tops Records released a series of holiday-themed albums. Each volume is dedicated to a different country. The cover photographs of two of them are courtesy of Trans World Airlines (TWA). The airline is also mentioned on the back cover and might have been a sponsor of the series.

About the artist (from Holiday in France):

Nestor Amaral needs little introduction to the American public. A versatile and talented artist Mr. Amaral has delighted the ear of American audiences since 1940 when he came to this country from his native Brazil in association with the late Carmen Miranda. After working on Broadway and Hollywood with Miss Miranda he formed his own orchestra to work in such well known places as the Hollywood Palladium, Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and the Ambassador Hotel. Continuing his work in motion pictures he has worked as a singer, musician and composer. A member of A.S.C.A.P. he has had many of his own compositions used in pictures. As a singer he introduced such popular songs as “It’s Magic” with Doris Day in Romance on the High Seas, “Baia” in the Walt Disney production of the Three Cabelleros and “Brazil” in the 20th Century Fox picture The Gangs All Here. As a musician his guitar has been heard in the musical score of Blood and Sand, Duel in the Sun, For Whom The Bells Toll, and many others.

Holiday in France depicts a ceremonial act at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The title is set in Filmotype Hunter. “Nestor Amaral and His Continentals” is again added in Venus Extended Light.

[More info on Discogs]

Holiday in Brazil has a long-exposure photo showing the traffic at Rio’s Copacabana, with a line drawing of two maracas on top. The letterforms of Latin Wide were arranged on a bouncing baseline and embellished with a thin hand-drawn inline. The credit line uses bold Bodoni caps. From the back cover:

For Brazil’s 400 anniversary in 1954, Nestor and Mrs. Amaral visited his homeland. He was accorded a national hero's welcome, with front page stories in the Rio newspapers. The Amarals remained eight months in Brazil where Nestor played many engagements on radio and television. “As far as vacationing is concerned,” says Amaral, “I don’t think it’s mere sentiment to inform newcomers that if they spend holiday in Brazil, they just MIGHT stay for good.”

[More info on Discogs]

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

Kansas City poster for TWA

Florian Hardwig — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 10:13:05 +0000

Contributed by Florian Hardwig

David Klein (1918–2005) designed and illustrated numerous posters for Howard Hughes’ Trans World Airlines and their “Fly TWA” campaign. The other day, I had posted one for Las Vegas, featuring West Banjo.

This poster advertising air trips to Kansas City uses handdrawn letters. It still qualifies for Fonts In Use, as Klein seems to have patterned the multiline caps on a design from Photo-Lettering, Inc.: it’s lettering derived from a typeface, or a font in indirect use.

The slogan “The City of Fountains” at the bottom – which is cropped in the image above – uses related monolinear letterforms, very much like in a light weight of Bauhaus Geometric.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, several geometric sans serifs drawn with multiple parallel lines emerged. Among them are Mexico Olympic (Lance Wyman, 1968), Churchward Design Lines (Joseph Churchward, 1970), or Aki Lines (Akihiko Seki, 1973). Some exhibit a rhythmized pattern, with strokes of uneven weight. These include Filmsense (Chwast/Glaser, 1967), Michel (Michel Waxmann, 1969), and Black Line (Wolf Magin, 1973).

Detail.

The typeface that provided the basis for Klein’s lettering probably is Bauhaus Prisma. Released in 1970 as an extension of Ed Benguiat’s Bauhaus Geometric, it’s one of only a few such multiline designs with round tops in letters like A or N. It was produced in 16 all-caps variants. The poster lettering is closest to Bauhaus Prisma J (#8154) or K (#8155), see below.

Detail from Photo-Lettering’s Art Deco booklet (1970), designed by Ed Benguiat. Bauhaus Prisma (left) has round shapes, Prisma Graphic (or Futura Prisma) stays closer to conventional shapes as found in Futura. As the series numbers indicate, these stylistic variants were actually part of the same film font.

The pattern is not identical, though, and the bar in A sits lower. The letter S is more akin to Prisma Graphic, which is a stylistic variant of the same design, with Futura-like letterforms. The only other typeface that can be considered as the model is Dick Isbell’s Prismania (Headliners, 1969), which came in 14 variants. It’s lighter in weight and has a different construction for K, though. Neither PLINC’s Prismas nor Prismania have an S with horizontal terminals – Klein took a little artistic license there.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

Prismania K by Headliners, as shown in Phil’s Photo’s catalog Homage to the Alphabet (1980).

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

Las Vegas poster for TWA

Florian Hardwig — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 17:24:53 +0000

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.

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use