From Wikipedia:

“Mis-Shapes” is a song written and released by English alternative rock band Pulp from their fifth album, Different Class (1995). Lyrically inspired by Cocker’s experiences socializing in Sheffield as an outcast, the song features lyrics that call for misfits to unite and take over. This lyrical theme would make Cocker uncomfortable with Pulp’s growing popularity with “townies” after the song’s release.

“Mis-Shapes” was released as a double-A sided single with “Sorted for E’s & Wizz”, the second single from Different Class after “Common People.” Like its predecessor, the single reached number two in the UK charts and has since seen critical acclaim.

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Typography-wise, the single follows the choices made for the album, with Chromium One for the band logo (also by The Designers Republic) and Windsor Extra Bold Condensed. The palette is completed by italic Poster Bodoni and Helvetica.

From Wikipedia:

“Pride (In the Name of Love)” is a song by Irish rock band U2. It is the second track on the band's 1984 album, The Unforgettable Fire, and was released as its lead single in September 1984. The song was produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. Written about the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., “Pride” received mixed critical reviews at the time, but it was a major commercial success for U2 and has since become one of their most popular songs, as well as being re-evaluated positively by many as one of the greatest popular rock songs of all time.

The artist and track titles are set in Bodoni Open, while the subtitle (“In the Name of Love”) and miscellaneous text use Caslon 540 Italic. The designer is uncredited, while the band photograph is by Anton Corbijn.

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Recorded August 18, 1976, in Kingston, Jamaica, Man in the Hills is the follow-up to Burning Spear’s seminal Marcus Garvey from the year before. The reggae album contains several songs that reminisce about Spear’s childhood in Saint Ann. Its cover was designed by Neville Garrick (1950–2023), who takes credit for many of the covers to Bob Marley’s albums. Coincidentally, Marley was from Saint Ann as well (and so was Marcus Garvey).

Man in the Hills is one of the more prominent in-use examples of Rustic No. 2, an 1840s oddity that’s equally cherished and ridiculed. A woody typeface for roots reggae.

“Burning Spear” is visualized by a perspective setting of Firebug, an aptly named variant of Dom Casual with added flames. I don’t know where this mod originated. Dan X. Solo showed it in his book Special Effects and Topical Alphabets from 1978.

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Song names and credits on the back cover are set in ITC Souvenir, mostly in all caps.

Front and back cover

Gatefold with liner notes by Carl Gayle from Black Music magazine

Five Leaves Left is the first studio album by English musician Nick Drake. It was recorded at Sound Techniques Studio in London and released in 1969 by Island Records.

The picture was taken by Keith Morris. There are no credits for the graphic design or layout [edit: it’s by Diogenic Attempts, see comments].

Filmotype Zither is used for the artist's name, accompanied by Gill Sans in all caps (and with questionable kerning) for the album’s title.

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Solid Air is the fourth studio album by English musician John Martyn. It was recorded at Sound Techniques Studio in London in 1972 and released by Island Records in 1973.

The picture was taken by John Webster using the schlieren photography process (see a video explanation), usually used by physicists to study airflow. (I’d suspect the picture was taken using a tricolor filter, with four candles behind a hand, and was rotated by 90 degrees afterwards)

The sleeve design is credited to designer Fabio Nicoli (sometimes credited as Fabio Nicoli Associates for other album covers).

Goudy Oldstyle is used with tight letterspacing for the artist’s name and album title. They are displayed on the same line, using the same font and color, the name being in uppercase and the title in lowercase.

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Frank album cover

Amy Winehouse’s debut album Frank was released in October 2003 on Island Records. The cover was designed by Michael Nash Associates, with photography by Charles Moriarty. The singer’s name and the title of the album and most of the singles released from it are set in all caps Litera.

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The cover for the album’s first single, “Stronger than Me” from October 2003, forms an exception: here the text is set in Gill Sans.

“Take the Box” single cover, January 2004

“In My Bed” / “You Sent Me Flying” single cover, April 2004

“Pumps” / “Help Yourself” single cover, August 2004

Photo by Dick Polak

“Wonderful World, Beautiful People” is a single by Jimmy Cliff, released in October 1969. It became a #6 hit in the UK. The sleeve for the French market – where it failed to chart – uses letterforms from two alphabets designed by Walter Haettenschweiler and reproduced in the Swiss Lettera source books: Gaité from Lettera 2 (1961) and Roaring Twenties from Lettera 3 (1968).

The unknown sleeve designer created a double M ligature for the latter, and made some adjustments to the former, too: Gaité’s D was rotated 180 degrees. Maybe they deemed the slightly descending bottom serif inadequate for a D? The rotated glyph now serves as a de facto lowercase d (the alphabet did include actual lowercase letters). I was flipped as well, as one can tell from the different serif direction compared to T and F. Gaité could have shone brighter with more generous and balanced spacing. On the other hand: props for the attempt to build custom quote marks and a comma from the furcated serifs.

The title of the B-side is added in Univers 83.

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Goodbye, Jimmy Cliff.

The Jamaican musician who helped popularize reggae music internationally died on November 24, 2025, at the age of 81. In 1971, when “Goodbye Yesterday” came out, Cliff already had a couple of hits under his belt, including “Wonderful World, Beautiful People” (1969) and “You Can Get It If You Really Want” (1970). It was still before his rise to global stardom: a year later, he would play the lead role in The Harder They Come, the film that “brought reggae to the world”, and contribute four songs to its iconic soundtrack, including the title track.

The sleeve for the Belgian release features Magnetic. Mecanorma’s contribution to the MICR genre is a dry transfer adaptation of Photo-Lettering’s Magnetic Ink, which in turn is based on James H. Moore’s Moore Computer. Magnetic/Magnetic Ink is distinguished by an unmodulated O and an I with thickened top and bottom, among other details.

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This 1980 compilation of rocksteady music – a precursor to reggae – recorded in the late 1960s shows that Estro by Aldo Novarese was something of a friendly workhorse for record labels in the postwar era.

Island Records was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell and two partners, and although it found great success in the rock & roll genre (U2, Roxy Music), reggae and Caribbean-influenced music was always a key part of its roster (Bob Marley, Toots & the Maytals). After relocating the business to the UK in 1962, Blackwell and Island were instrumental in developing the market for reggae on both sides of the Atlantic. This compilation album – a sampler assembled by Steven Barrow and Rob Bell – provides a small piece of that history.

Display type is set in Estro, while text is set in Univers. On the record labels, the “fine print” is in Univers Condensed (perhaps Univers 47).

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Filmotype Holly was used on the cover of King Crimson’s 1974 album Red. From Wikipedia:

During the mixing stage, ideas for the album’s title and artwork were discussed. The needles on the meters on the studio's mixing desk were observed to be “bouncing and crashing sharply into the red”; for Wetton, this symbolised the direction of the band's music and was to influence the planned front cover of Red. However, EG [the band’s management] suggested that a group photograph would be easier to sell, particularly for the American market. EG director Mark Fenwick pitched to hire John Kosh, who subsequently commissioned Gered Mankowitz to produce photographs of the meters (for the album’s back cover) and the group, but tensions within the group led to each member being photographed alone and being combined into a composite. The resulting cover’s chiaroscuro style has been compared to that of the Beatles’ 1963 album With the Beatles […]

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Text on the back cover appears to be set in some wonky phototype version of Futura Bold. The album was released on Island Records in the UK. The images show the US release on Atlantic Records.

Alex Joseph designed the album artwork, logo and branding for Lola Young’s album This Wasn't Meant for You Anyway. The cover features a portrait by Sophie Jones, with Lola Young's name set in Windsor Elongated, with added weight. The album title appears discreetly below in Helvetica Bold. The same fonts are used across the vinyl design, album singles, and promotional materials.

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front cover

Tom Waits' eighth studio album Swordfishtrombones marks a decade since his debut album, Closing Time from 1973, and also marks a stylistic switch-up for Waits. For this album he would incorporate more influence from cabaret and beatnik music, leading to a more instrumentally rich and stranger sonic palette than his previous work.

Front cover text and Waits credit are in Empire. On the back cover, the tracklist is in Cheltenham Old Style Bold Condensed. Credits at the bottom are in several weights of Cheltenham Old Style.

The cover art for the CD version has larger type.

The cover concept is by Michael Russ together with Waits. Russ is also credited for the design including photography and illlustration, with art direction by Frank Mulvey.

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back cover

Dancing with the Devil... the Art of Starting Over is the seventh studio album by Demi Lovato. It was released in April 2021 with Island Records and is primarily a pop record, with elements of pop rock, country pop, folk-pop, and R&B.

Shown here is the standard edition cover, plus three variants which maintain the same basic composition with the same typography and a photo of the singer, but with different poses, kaleidoscopic effects, and color gradients in the background. In addition, there are two more editions made for the UK market and one variant that was exclusively sold by Target in the United States. They all can be found on the Fandom Wiki page.

The singer’s name is set in caps from Grande. The typeface page on Creative Market features an image of the album cover, suggesting it was the most notable use of the typeface. The title is added in lowercase letters from MADE Mirage. Both typeface were released in 2020.

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From Wikipedia:

“Linger” is a song by Irish alternative rock band the Cranberries from their debut studio album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? (1993). Composed by band members Dolores O'Riordan and Noel Hogan, and produced by Stephen Street, “Linger” was first released as the second and final single from the album on 15 February 1993 by Island Records. It was later re-released on 31 January 1994.

The script is Just van Rossum’s FF Justlefthand (1990), used with faux-bolding for the titles. The band name, also in all-lowercase letters, looks like it’s autotraced. Repeating letters aren’t identical, suggesting it’s not a font (anymore).

Photography by Andy Earl. No designer is credited.

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Front cover of the soundtrack album

Alexander of the Herb Lubalin Study Center showed a mostly typographic and entirely black-and-white “Style B” poster made for The Harder They Come. He points out that other promotional posters for the film were done in the blaxploitation style. This post is about the most striking design among those.

The soundtrack album to the Jamaican cult film was released in the United Kingdom in July 1972 by Island Records. A North American release followed in February 1973 on Mango Records. The sleeve design is credited to London-based CCS Associates, with cover art by John Bryant.

The title is rendered in Bottleneck. Tony Wenman’s design for Letraset was brand new at the time: it was issued earlier in 1972, likely inspired by the success of Seymour Chwast’s Art Tone, and most closely following its Boot Black style. The bottom-heavy letterforms were drawn by hand, arranged on an arch, contoured, extruded, and filled with color gradients. Jimmy Cliff’s name got a similarly colorful treatment, with shaded letterforms loosely based on Cooper Black Italic: the initial J obtained a large descending hook, C was streamlined, and the f’s elongated.

This artwork was also used for a poster issued by Island Records to promote the album, and later got adopted for posters made for various re-releases of the film.

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Promotional poster for the soundtrack by Island Records, UK, 1973. The elements of Bryant’s artwork were rearranged for the taller format.

British Quad (30″×40″) poster for a 1977 re-release of the “original uncut version” by Lagoon Associates. Again, the elements of Bryant’s artwork were rearranged, now optimized for the landscape format. Additional text is set in all-caps Franklin Gothic.

German poster (24.25″×16.5″) for a 1980 re-release by Melody & Art Films, featuring a coarser copy of the original art, with a simpler color scheme – which extends to the lettering. The text added at the bottom uses the upright style of Cooper Black, apparently applied as rub-down type.

Back cover of the soundtrack album (Mango Records, 1973). Most text is produced on a typewriter, making use of double spacing and several ellipses to justify the last paragraph. “Original Soundtrack Recording” is in unmodified Bottleneck. Credits are set in Univers Condensed and Helvetica.

Front and back cover of the gatefold

Inner gatefold with a collage of photos and lyrics.

In 1999, British band Tindersticks took a somewhat unexpected creative turn with the release of their most soulful album to date, Simple Pleasure. This change of musical direction was subtly hinted at by the type choice on the cover, credited to duo Bartholomew & Windsor (actually, lead singer Stuart A. Staples and his wife, artist Suzanne Osborne): indeed, according to the band's website, the use of Colin Brignall’s Premier Lightline in all caps directly references the artwork for Ann Peebles’s 1974 album I Can’t Stand the Rain. Both records are great, by the way.

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Justin Hinds (1942–2005) and his backing vocal trio The Dominoes recorded myriad single tracks and less than a handful of record albums in the late seventies and eighties. Years before, Hinds had scored the monster hit that would remain his biggest claim to fame: “Carry Go Bring Come”, recorded in 1963 and released by Treasure Isle Records.

On both Jezebel (1976) and Just in Time (1978), either band or someone at Island Records decided to spell the singer’s last name as “Hines” instead of “Hinds”. Both albums featured artwork and design by London based design studio Bloomfield/Travis, pairing a portrait with contoured capitals of Quaint Roman.

Bloomfield/Travis designed the covers for many big names in reggae (like Burning Spear and Steel Pulse) but also worked for numerous post punk bands (like The Slits, for example). I have not been able to find information about how big the studio was, or who had what role, but a blog post on the Kamikazi Dub website reports that the studio worked with Jamaican designer Trevor Campbell, among others.

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On the US/Canadian market, the album was released in a variant with a black background.

Samara Keller’s Tempos Mono is being used by Alliage for the British singer-songwriter Ben Howard and his fourth studio album Collections from the Whiteout.

Art direction: Micha Barban Dangerfield and Roddy Bow
Photography: Roddy Bow
Label: Island Records

CD back cover

Vinyl record

Liege & Lief is the fourth album by British folk rock band Fairport Convention, recorded at Sound Techniques studio in London and released in the United Kingdom by Island Records in December 1969 and in the United States by A&M Records in 1970.

Roberta Nicol is credited for the design concept (together with the band) and execution. She has worked on two other Fairport Convention albums, and also made a design for Continental Drifter’s mini album Listen Listen that has a very similar look to Liege & Lief. Diogenic Attempts is credited for the design co-ordination.

Richmond Old Style in its Condensed weight is used for the band name and album title on the front cover of the album.

This album has seen a lot of reissues in various formats (110 different versions according to Discogs). Most of them use the same artwork for the cover, sometimes with color variants. Some cassettes covers have the title and band name written in various typefaces in addition to the original artwork untouched, and one 8-track release only kept the pictures of the band members.

One notable exception is the cassette reissues from 1970 and 1971. These versions’ covers feature only the title of the album and the band name over a pink background. This time, Windsor Elongated is used for the text, with two small details that seem worthy to mention. The lowercase a seems to have been rotated to look straight. The ampersand looks very similar to the original album art and is probably still from Richmond Old Style.

The back cover has been modified numerous times depending on the release date and format, with different degrees of alteration. The typefaces are different from one version to another.

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Front cover of a 1970 U.S. release by A&M Records.

Gatefold

Back cover of a 1970 U.S. release by A&M Records. The typeface appears to be Textype.

The cover of the cassettes reissues from 1970-1971

Front cover of a later edition with a color variant

Back cover of a later edition with a color variant.

2023 has LTR NCND. 2008 got Trixie HD. And the 1990s had the original Trixie, of course. But what about earlier decades?

In 1960, in a time when actual typewriters were still very much in use, Swiss graphic artist Walter Haettenschweiler designed an eroded typewriter face named Halbstarke Pica. Presumably he achieved the desired irregularity by working the basic letterforms with ink and white-out. A year later, the alphabet (plus numerals) was reproduced in the second volume of Lettera, the series of source books published by Niggli. The fifth revised edition from 1976 additionally co-credits Armin Haab – the editor of Lettera (from vol. 2 together with Haettenschweiler) – for the design of Halbstarke Pica.

Here it can be seen in use on the French sleeve for “Inside” by British rock band Jethro Tull, the only single from their 1970 album Benefit. The grot probably is Helvetica schmalfett, set on angle, with added contour and double accents instead of quote marks.

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