Letterpress printed advertisement poster and animation series for Typographic-Printing-Program.com.

The posters have been printed from traditional wood type and additional pantograph-cut pear wood sorts of Plakatschrift Didot for the larger sizes (“RRRrrriing”, “Kerning Depression?”, “Sans or Serif?”, and “Legibility Emergency?”), traditional plastic poster type and additional laser-cut acrylic glass sorts also of Plakatschrift Didot for the secondary information (“Call the typographic helpline …”) as well as some Ludlow slugs of Gothic Condensed No. 2 for the smallest size and a piece of hand-cut linoleum for the phone.

The animations have been produced from photographic reproductions of the printed posters.

Program poster for Tunnel, a club in Glarus, Switzerland. Letterpress printed in six printing passes from hand-cut linoleum and cast Ludlow slugs.

The round overlapping “t-u-n-n-e-l” words (patterned after Futura Condensed) have been overprinted in five passes from hand-cut linoleum.

The small copy (in 48pt Gothic Condensed No. 2) has been cast manually from Ludlow hot metal slugs and printed in a separate printing pass.

Ludlow’s fictional usage samples from this 1960s Record Gothic specimen.​

Record Gothic is a typeface that most contemporary designers don’t know because it never made the jump to digital format. It’s a large disparate family developed over many years, each new style mirroring the fashions of its period rather than fitting within the kind of aesthetically congruous system we expect from large type families today. For some typographers, that is its charm.

According to McGrew and others, Record Gothic was released in one regular weight and width at small sizes in the late 1920s. In the early 1950s Ludlow added larger sizes and cut Condensed and Extra Condensed. From 1956–69 Ludlow expanded the family to 20 members (most of which are represented in this booklet), with Middleton contributing to many of the styles. These subsequent styles vary widely, some close to News and Alternate Gothics, others similar to Akzidenz-Grotesk, Folio (Bold/Heavy Condensed) and Helvetica (Medium-Extended).

While there is not yet an explicit digital revival, the recently released Notary (2014) is derived from the standard width. Record Gothic on Fonts In Use →

4.25″ × 8.25″ letterpress flyer designed by Joe Newton and Davin Kuntze, printed by Kuntze at Woodside Press in Brooklyn using type cast with their Ludlow linecaster (no relation to Ludlow Street where the concert will take place).

Poster promoting Swiss nigthclub Veka-Glarus’ Spring events, designed and printed by Dafi Kühne.

From Dafi’s explanation:

Each event is formulated as a question asking about something that got lost at the last – or better upcoming – event. For example: ‹I lost my red cap with a soviet star at the Bajanski Bal concert. Did you find it?› – below the information about the upcoming Bajanski Bal concert. But also more abstract like: ‹After the last Futurerave I forgot the phone number of that very beautiful bartender. Could you please help me out?› or ‹Fai Baba stole my heart! Could I get it back?›.

All the questions and statements refer to the lost and found departement at Veka-Glarus, that is always filled with loads of stuff that's been left behind. In the lower right corner of the poster comes the answer: ‹For all the lost and forgotten things please just visit us at any event. Our lost and found departement is always filled with surprises.›

The posters were letterpress printed at Benjamin Franklin Printing Co. in Richmond, Virginia, using freshly cast lines of type from a Ludlow Typograph. A video of the process gives some insight into the production techniques.