Ray Charles

Ray Charles at Philipshalle Düsseldorf concert poster

Florian Hardwig — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 08:59:22 +0000

Contributed by Florian Hardwig

Source: www.popdom.de Popdom. License: All Rights Reserved.

Some of the ultrageometric, spurless “Bauhaus” faces of the late 1960s and 1970s came with a buckload of alternates, see for example Blippo. Pump was not among those. Bob Newman’s 1970 design for Letraset offered no extra glyphs whatsoever.

That didn’t stop resourceful designers to expand on its repertoire. Günther Kieser built some alternate swash caps himself: he unceremoniously extended the R’s leg by attaching the lower part of an L, and engrafted half an S onto the right arm of the Y. The A and S were created in a similar fashion. The hands-on nature and materiality of rub-down lettering facilitated such repurposing and recombination.

For the pictorial part of the DIN A1 poster (60×84 cm), Kieser opted for a similarly playful approach, and doubled Ray Charles’s trademark sunglasses and his smile by means of photomontage.

“The Genius of Ray Charles Show ’71” by the Ray Charles Orchestra featuring the Raelettes (here spelled Raeletts) was presented by Norman Granz. The concert at the Philipshalle Düsseldorf (today known as Mitsubishi Electric Halle) on September 22, 1971, was the only tour stop in North Rhine-Westfalia. The same poster design was used for the show at Musikhalle Hamburg two days later, as well as for the gigs in Frankfurt (October 16), Geneva (Oct. 23), and probably other locations.

Letraset instant lettering sheets with the uppercase letters and numerals (2437) and the lowercase letters (2438) of 72pt Pump

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

Série Chouchou single covers

Florian Hardwig — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 20:36:00 +0000

Contributed by Florian Hardwig

#1, Percy Sledge – “When A Man Loves A Woman” / “Love Me Tender”

Série Chouchou is the name of a French series of 7″ records with songs by artists from Warner, Reprise, Elektra, Atlantic, and Chrysalis, distributed by WEA. Between 1973 and 1975, a total of thirty records were released, with musical styles ranging from soul (Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding) and rock ’n’ roll (Fats Domino) to hard rock (Iron Butterfly, Alice Cooper).

Graphicolor in Nanterre printed each sleeve in two colors, with some releases being made available in alternative color variants. The artist/band name is always set in all caps, and the song titles (mostly) in all lowercase characters.

The typeface may look familiar, and yet this is the first time we feature it on Fonts In Use. Its name is Roc. Designer Albert Boton drew it for French phototype company Hollenstein. I don’t know when exactly Roc was made. The earliest showing I’m aware of is as Hollenstein Roc in a Photo-Lettering brochure from 1964. In 1963, British dry transfer manufacturer Letraset released Compacta. It seems likely that the folks at Hollenstein saw Compacta and asked Boton to come up something similar for phototypesetting. But maybe it’s the other way around and Roc came first?

In any case, such a tight-setting bold condensed sans was very much in vogue at the time: Schmalfette Grotesk started to become popular in the late 1950s, and other manufacturers responded to the trend: Haas and Weber revamped their old designs as Inserat-Grotesk and Neue Aurora VIII, respectively. Ludwig & Mayer issued Permanent Headline in 1964, Stephenson Blake brought out Impact in 1965, and Mergenthaler Linotype followed up with Helvetica Compressed in 1966.

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

Roc (top; here Photoscript’s version named “Ascona Grotesk (Roc)” from a 1965 catalog, scan courtesy of Stephen Coles, CC BY-NC-SA) compared to Compacta (bottom; here Bitstream’s digitization with decreased tracking)

Roc and Compacta are similar, but there are also a couple of differences, see for example the modulation in A M N V W. The construction of several of Roc’s glyphs like a g y G Q is closer to that of Univers (1957/1958). No surprise: Boton started his career at Deberny & Peignot, working under Frutiger.

Roc wasn’t kept exclusive to Hollenstein in Paris. In addition to Photo-Lettering in New York, it was also carried by Photoscript in London, where it went under the name Ascona Grotesk (Roc). By 1974, Hollenstein had the design extended to six styles; maigre (caps only), normal, italique, noir, noir italique, and noir coupé (stencil). It did fairly well for a while, but due to its limited availability, the design fell into oblivion and became overshadowed by Compacta. To my knowledge, Roc was never digitized.

The Série Chouchou logo features caps from Normande, set on a circle. The number is in Helvetica Bold for the first few releases, changing to the more compact Helvetica Inserat (or Helvetica schmalfett?) for two-digit numbers.

[More info on Discogs]

Posted as part of a series that pays tribute to Albert Boton, one of the preeminent French type designers of the past sixty years. Albert Boton died on July 20, 2023, at the age of 91.

#2, Jethro Tull – “Bourée” / “Locomotive Breath”

#3, Sonny & Cher – “I Got You Babe” / “The Beat Goes On”

#4, Delaney & Bonnie – “Miss Ann” / “Free the People”

#4, back cover

#5, Wilson Pickett – “In The Midnight Hour” / “Land Of 1000 Dances”

#6, Otis Redding – “Satisfaction” / “Respect”

#7, Ray Charles – “What I’d Say” / “Hallelujah, I Love Her So”

#8, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – “Woodstock” / “Carry On”

#9, Aretha Franklin – “Respect” / “I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)”. The wide light sans is Univers 33, see also #19.

#10, Vanilla Fudge – “You Keep Me Hanging’ [sic!] On, Part 1 / Part 2”

#11, Iron Butterfly – “In A Gadda Da Vida” / “[In] Iron Butterfly Theme”

#12, Graham Nash – “Chicago” / “Military Madness”

#13, Bread – “Baby I’m A Want You” / “The Guitar Man”

#14, The Doors – “Light My Fire” / “Hello, I Love You”

#15, Norman Greenbaum – “Spirit In The Sky” / “Canned Ham”

#16, Routers – “Let’s Go” / “Mashy”. The second song name is added in Helvetica Bold.

#17, Alice Cooper – “School’s Out” / “Elected”

#19, Peter, Paul & Mary – “Blowing In The Wind” / “If I Had A Hammer (The Hammer Song)”. The wide light sans is Univers 33, se also #9.

#18, The Everly Brothers – “Cathy’s Clown” / “Lucille”

#20, Myriam Makeba – “Pata Pata” / “Malayisha”

#21, Otis Redding – “(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay” / “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”

#22, Fats Domino – “Lady Madonna” / “I’m Ready”

#23, The Bar-Kays – “Soul Finger” / “Knucklehead”

#24, Sam & Dave – “Hold On, I’m Coming” / “Soul Man”

#25, Ben E. King – “Stand By Me” / “Spanish Harlem”

#26, Booker T & The MG’s – “Green Onions” / “Get Ready”

#27, Arthur Conley – “Sweet Soul Music” / “Funky Street”

#28, Percy Sledge – “Warm And Tender Love” / “My Special Prayer”

#29, King Curtis – “Memphis Soul Stew” / “Teasin’”

#30, Wilson Pickett – “Funky Broadway” / “Mustang Sally”

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

In the Heat of the Night movie posters

Florian Hardwig — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 15:18:14 +0000

Contributed by Florian Hardwig

Source: movieposters.ha.com Heritage Auctions. License: All Rights Reserved.

One Sheet poster (27″×41″)

From Wikipedia:

In the Heat of the Night is a 1967 American neo-noir mystery drama film directed by Norman Jewison. It is based on John Ball’s 1965 novel of the same name and tells the story of Virgil Tibbs, a Black police detective from Philadelphia, who becomes involved in a murder investigation in a small town in Mississippi. It stars Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, and was produced by Walter Mirisch. The screenplay was written by Stirling Silliphant.

The film title is based on Allen Cubist. This typeface was drawn by John S. Allen and shown by Photo-Lettering in 1965, together with a seriffed version named Abstract. Cubist is here used in green capitals, with tight letterspacing. Several letter pairs share a stem and form (custom?) ligatures. The wordmark exhibits three “bullet holes” from which concentric circles emanate. It is enclosed in so-called sign painters’ quotes.

The tagline reads “They got a murder on their hands. They don’t know what to do with it.” It appears to be set in Ad Lib. Like Cubist, Ad Lib has inconsistent, “jumping” stroke widths in glyphs where verticals meet horizontals, like A B F E H P R T. Ad Lib was designed by Freeman Craw – allegedly inspired by Harold Adler’s lettering for the 1958 film Bonjour Tristesse – and released by ATF as foundry type in 1961. On closer look, the letterforms on the poster for In the Heat of the Night are not only narrower than in Ad Lib, but also different in details like the angle of counters and terminals. They are either custom drawn, based on Ad Lib. Or they come from an unknown phototype adaptation. Repeating glyphs appear to be identical [edit: it is a phototype adaptation: Filmotype Pioneer].

On the U.S. posters, the names of Poitier and Steiger are shown in Akzidenz-Grotesk Bold Condensed, with most other information in News Gothic Condensed.

The movie logo, isolated

Half Sheet poster (22″×28″)

Spanish One Sheet poster (27.5″×39.5″) by Gráficas Bobes, Barcelona. The translated title here is lettering, emulating the the original wordmark. The names of the leading actors are set in Helvetica Inserat. Smaller text uses regular-wide Akzidenz-Grotesk.

This Australian One Sheet poster (27″×40″) appears to be entirely hand-lettered. It was printed by Robert Burton Pty Ltd, Sydney.

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

Various Artists – Jazz Super Hits Vols. 1 and 2 album art

Florian Hardwig — Fri, 26 May 2023 13:19:15 +0000

Contributed by Florian Hardwig

Source: archive.org Internet Archive (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Jazz Super Hits, 1969 [More info on Discogs]

Endicott Bodoni Shaded (Sample unavailable)

Jazz Super Hits is a series of compilation records by Atlantic Records.

The cover of the first volume from 1969 is another example of designer Loring Eutemey making early use of a new face from Photo-Lettering’s library. In this case, it’s Eightway by Milton Glaser and George Leavitt, and specifically the Shaded Northwest style. It’s complemented by Kabel Black in all caps (for artist names) and all lowercase letters (for titles), respectively.

For vol. 2 from 1970, Eutemey chose Endicott Shaded G for the title, set in bichromatic caps, with one word per line. Other text is added in all-caps Egyptienne Bold Condensed. Again, the designer who started his career at Push Pin Studios illustrated each of the tracks with an individual image, using a mix of drawing, found graphics and photomontage.

See also his cover design for the The Super Groups compilation (1969) for which Eutemey used a similar potpourri of illustrations and another shaded typeface.

Jazz Super Hits Vol. 2, 1970 [More info on Discogs]

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

Ray Charles – The Genius Hits The Road album art

Mon, 25 May 2020 19:49:23 +0000

Photo(s) by Klaus Hiltscher on Flickr.

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Klaus Hiltscher and tagged with “filmotypehusky” and “filmotypevolt”. License: All Rights Reserved.

Filmotype Volt (Sample unavailable)

From Klaus Hiltscher:

His first LP for ABC. A great one with a fantastic version of Glenn Miller’s “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”. Better than Miller's version (to me). This LP was a No. 9 in October 1960. His third entry in the US LP charts

Cover design by Viceroy, with photography by Montague Everett, two faces from the Filmotype library, the upright brush script Husky and the outlined and shaded Volt, plus a track list in the form of a sign post, with lots of caps from Futura Condensed.

[More info on Discogs]

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

Ray Charles – Dedicated To You album art

Sun, 29 Sep 2019 12:09:10 +0000

Released in January 1961, the album collects Charles’ musical love notes to twelve very special women, by name. — Wikipedia

Cover design by Viceroy, using a photograph by Bob Gomel. The artist’s name is set in caps from Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed, in alternating glyph colors (cf. Marvin Israel’s cover for the self-titled album from 1957). The font used for the title is Echo, a contoured and shaded grotesque designed by Peter Bell and issued by Stephenson Blake in 1956.

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

Ray Charles – Yes Indeed! album art

Florian Hardwig — Sat, 17 Feb 2018 15:47:43 +0000

Cover of the 1958 release, designed by Marvin Israel.

Yes Indeed! is the third album by Ray Charles, released in 1958 by Atlantic. It was the second of three Atlantic LPs that compiled Charles’ hit singles for the label.

The originally release from 1958 came with a cover design by Marvin Israel, featuring all-lowercase letters for the artist’s name and the title. For the 1964 re-release shown below, Loring Eutemey turned up the typographic volume quite a bit and even added a second exclamation mark to the title.

Cover of the 1964 re-release, designed by Loring Eutemey with a photo by Jim Marshall.

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

Ray Charles – Ray Charles album art, Atlantic Records

Stephen Coles — Sat, 08 Feb 2014 07:16:24 +0000

“One of the first handful of LPs issued by Atlantic, Ray Charles (later retitled Hallelujah I Love Her So) is a bona fide classic of its genre.” — Sopa de Blues

“Ray Charles is Ray Charles' 1957 debut album for Atlantic Records. It was re-released as Hallelujah I Love Her So in 1962.” — Wikipedia

To the best of my knowledge, the title is set in Standard Medium Condensed (see Akzidenz-Grotesk). The “RR” logo appears to be based on Standard Extrabold Extended, but is not a match. Perhaps it is lettering.

Ray Charles commemorative stamp

Chris Purcell — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 19:31:33 +0000

Hey, hey, it’s Uncle Ray! The larger image above is the reverse of the stamp sheet. Note the little sliver of black at the top of the stamp sheet below to mimic an LP record poking out of its sleeve. From the USPS website:

The stamp art features an image of Charles, taken later in his career, by photographer Yves Carrère. … Art director Ethel Kessler worked on the stamp sheet with designer Neal Ashby.

I’m so glad the Postal Service actually gives credit to art directors and designers. The website also shows a poster for sale. It uses another condensed sans which I couldn’t quickly identify.

Source: store.usps.com photo © Mephisto; “All rights to the name and likeness of Ray Charles are owned by The Ray Charles Foundation.”. License: All Rights Reserved.

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use