Boogie Nights Halloween flyer, red backside (Instagram version)

Halloween flyers are some of my favorite designs to create because they tend to be fun and creative. This BOO-gie Nights flyer is one of my own personal favorite Halloween flyer designs that I’ve created over the years, thanks to the extremely dramatic composition, costumes, facial expressions, and lighting. The flyer was designed for the Boogie Nights Halloween party presented by DJ Frank G and Gil Cabrerra on Saturday, October 28th, 2023, at Islanders on 151 W. Alder St. in Stockton, California, featuring DJ Manuel C, DJ Frank G, and a special Michael Jackson impersonation performance by QStar.

The design features zombies, witches, demons, vampires, a vampire queen, and Día de los Muertos painted-faced girls. It utilizes the fonts Lycanthrope,Trajan, and Futura in the main section. The Islander’s logo utilizes Hawaiian Punk In addition, Cadeaulx and Century Gothic are found on the DJ Emir Logo tag in the right lower corner.

The Boogie Nights Logo was created utilizing the Lyncanthrope font with multiple layers to emphasize that the word BOOGIE is a play on words BOO-gie by highlighting the “BOO” in gold metalic font color over the eerie goulish green color for “BOOGIE”.

The flyer designs were created by DJ Emir and Extreme Flyer Designs as was the logo design for the DJEmir.com logo.

Boogie Nights Halloween flyer, front side (Instagram version)

Boogie Nights Halloween flyer, back side (Tall poster and flyer version)

Boogie Nights Halloween flyer, front side (Tall poster and flyer version)

Movie poster for the 1987 vampire film The Lost Boys, directed by Joel Schumacher, starring Keifer Sutherland, Jason Patric, Corey Feldman, Corey Haim, and Diane Wiest.

The title treatment is set in caps from Palatino (designed by Hermann Zapf), using a mix of sizes. The billing block is also set in Palatino.

The tagline is set in Caslon 540@ by the American Type Founders Company.

With terminals as sharp as fangs, Gothic Tuscan Pointed was a natural choice for the title of Basil Copper’s popular study of vampires. First published in hardback by Robert Hale in 1973, this is Corgi’s paperback edition from 1975. The specific font in use likely is the phototype adaption made by Headliners as part of the Morgan Press Collection, which includes a lowercase. The descender in p apparently was cut short to avoid spacing issues.

One of the oldest and most terrible superstitions is that of the vampire. This blood-curdling legend of the undead has fascinated millions throughout the centuries, and today it is still a powerful myth … or is it? What is a vampire? Have they ever existed? And, if not, how has their dreadful reputation become so well established?

[More info on ISFDB]

The typography of the title page is carried over from the first edition by Robert Hale & Co., featuring Cloister Black – with appropriately bat-shaped top serifs in V – and Futura. The Shakespeare motto is added in Plantin.

Plantin is also used for the interior typography, with headings in Cloister Black.

The teaser quote on the back cover is set in the underused fett weight of Trump-Mediäval, digitally available as Bitstream’s Kuenstler 480 Black. The synopsis is in Rockwell.

The Unbidden, front cover [More info on ISFDB]

In 1975 and 1976, Pyramid Books published American editions of three collections of horror stories by British author R. Chetwynd-Hayes that had previously been published in the UK: The Unbidden (February 1975), Cold Terror (March 1975), and Terror by Night (June 1976). The cover art is by Polish-American artist George Ziel. The typographer is uncredited.

The titles and back cover taglines use Bordonaro Vampire. The front cover taglines, author’s name, and blurbs on the back covers use Weiss.

The smaller bits like the publisher’s name and serial number and price use Trade Gothic (or maybe the largely identical News Gothic).

Cold Terror, front cover [More info on ISFDB]

Cold Terror, back cover

Terror by Night, front cover [More info on ISFDB]

Terror by Night, back cover

The magazine logo uses Flood, see the post about issue 28.

This 55th issue of the French cinema magazine La Septième Obsession is dedicated to women and horror movies, including interviews with filmmakers Coralie Fargeat and Robert Eggers, as well as movie reviews (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Black Christmas, The Silence of the Lambs…) and thematic essays.

Most texts are set in Lyon and Surt, while titles use an all-caps Grandmaster (occasionally with modified letters). Several covers exist, one featuring The Substance and using Signal Compressed, the other featuring Nosferatu and using Bradley DJR as well as Hans Fraktur.

Note the modified uppercase R in the title.

Note the modified uppercase R in the title.

Alternate cover using Bradley DJR and Hans Fraktur

This 54th issue of the French cinema magazine La Septième Obsession is dedicated to American filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, with a 100-pages focus on the subject from classics like The Godfather and Apocalypse Now to the most recent Megalopolis.

Most texts are set in Lyon and Surt, while titles use Grandmaster in all caps (occasionally with modified letters). The cover title is in Apocalypse Now, a typeface that imitates the title lettering for the eponymous movie.

The magazine logo uses Flood, see the post about issue 28.

Note the modified uppercase “R” in the title.

From The Holding Coat:

When I was in the New Jersey offices of Independent-International Pictures to begin re-shoots for what became Raiders Of The Living Dead, company founder Sam Sherman invited me to take my pick from his huge stash of pressbooks. I-I was famous for releasing the same movie under numerous titles. This is actually Dracula vs Frankenstein once again.

The title is set in Orbit Inline, the contoured variant of the bottom-heavy face from around 1970.

The movie title uses Zangezi Condensed.

This was probably one of my most fun projects in 2023. Artist and filmmaker Josefin Arnell approached me for the credits for her new zombie/vampire movie BUURTHUIS II. The story revolves around the infamous community center in Amsterdam Wittenburg that was the crime scene of a mistargeted deadly shooting in 2018.

Director Arnell worked with the community in script writing workshops and included them as actors in her submission for the Prix de Rome 2023. The result is an absurdist political horror movie that deals with gentrification and blood sucking capitalism.

After she approached me, I researched classic horror typefaces that are used in John Carpenter’s movies or other 1980s classics. Typefaces like ITC Quorum, Albertus, Flange or Romic. (ITC Benguiat had to stay home, due to overuse after being prominently featured in Stranger Things). But I included some fresh Future Fonts typefaces by three female type designers I admire. Messer by Inga Plönnigs, Silverspoon by Diana Ovezea and Zangezi by Daria Cohen (f.k.a. Daria Petrova). These fonts were also used by Josefin Arnell in her design for the movie posters, and paired with Zombie Monster by Rayvaldo Rizki Pratama Augusta.

For the subtitles, editor Lukas Heistinger contacted me, asking for a recommendation that is well readable on screen yet able to compete with the exciting typeface in the credits. From several recommendations the freely available closed source typeface Author, designed by Satya Rajpurohit and published at his Fontshare, was the the final choice.

The movie was presented at Prix de Rome 2023 at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. More context on the show and BUURTHUIS II can be read at Tangents.art

Movie posters, designed by Josefin Arnell, using Zangezi (stretched), Silverspoon Italic and Zombie Monster.

Credits using both upright and italic styles of Zangezi

Captions by editor Lukas Heistinger, set in Author

US One Sheet poster

From Wikipedia:

Black Sunday (Italian: La maschera del demonio, lit. ‘The mask of the demon’) is a 1960 Italian gothic horror film directed by Mario Bava in his official directorial debut, and starring Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Andrea Checchi, Ivo Garrani, Arturo Dominici and Enrico Oliveri. Loosely based on Nikolai Gogol’s short story “Viy”, the film takes place in Moldavia and tells the story of a witch who is put to death by her brother, only to return two centuries later to seek revenge upon his descendants.

These posters are from the film’s 1961 US release by American International Pictures. The film’s taglines are set in Safari. The credit block is set in News Gothic Extra Condensed with lesser portions in a condensed News Gothic. Additional type is set in Alternate Gothic and Franklin Gothic. The US Window Card also features what looks to be Venus Extended or similar. The film’s title appears to be hand-lettered and is rendered differently for certain poster formats. It's possible that Safari influenced the look of the hand-lettered title seen on the US One Sheet, as the interlocking ligatures (LA, AY) align with how the title is typeset in the tagline of the US Half Sheet.

Designer/s unknown.

US Half Sheet poster, with title also set in Safari as part of the tagline

US Insert poster, featuring an extended tagline set in Safari

US Window Card, featuring what could be the outline style of Safari. The producers text above the title appears to be set in Venus Extended or similar.

Split Ends is a phototype adaptation of an alphabet by lettering artist Ross F. George, reproduced as “Design & Poster” in the 13th edition of his Speedball Text Book (1938). It was shown by Lettergraphics in 1976 and was used already in 1973. Here it can be seen in use for a three-record box set with recordings of radio broadcasts released in 1975 by Murray Hill Records.

The episodes include extracts from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Bram Stoke’s Dracula, and feature the voice talents of Boris Karloff, Raymond Edward Jackson, Agnes Moorehead, Orson Welles, and John Carradine, among others.

Split Ends is paired with Letraset’s Compacta Outline (“The Great Radio”), Vogue (“Dracula, Frankenstein & other eerie broadcasts”), and Helvetica. The text on the back cover set in various styles from the Trade Gothic family, including the Extended.

[More info on Discogs]

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1872), edited by Carmen Maria Machado (2019)

Clockwork Editions is a series of books with Gothic tales from the late 18th century, published by Lanternfish Press. For the cover designs of the first three volumes, Kimberly Glyder combined biological illustrations with typography in Melbourne (a version of Milton) and Mohave.

The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers (1895), edited by John Edgar Browning (2019)

Medusa’s Daughters, edited by Theodora Goss (2020)

A poster promoting the 1999 premiere of the series, featuring Chase's logotype and additional text set in Missive.

Logotype designed by Margo Chase for the 1999 television series Angel. The series is a spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for which Chase also designed the logo. The title sequence was designed by Regis B. Kimble. Promotional poster by an unknown designer.

Chase's logotype for the series is based on the uppercase of Bernhard Modern, with sections removed. This appears to have been expanded and made into a custom font for use in the title sequence of the series. The G featured in the title sequence differs slightly from that seen in the logotype, with an extended stake-like spur that descends below the baseline. The end credits also feature Bernhard Modern in its more regular form. Additional text on the promotional poster is set in Missive.

Chase's logotype for the series is based on the uppercase of Bernhard Modern, with sections removed.

The G featured in the title sequence differs slightly from the logotype, with an extended stake-like spur that descends below the baseline.

Various cast credits, as seen in the title sequence, contain additional glyphs suggesting that Chase's logotype based on Bernhard Modern was expanded and made into a custom font.

Chase's expanded logotype is also paired with Bernhard Modern for certain credits.

The end credits also feature Bernhard Modern in its more usual form.

One sheet movie posters for the 1998 superhero horror film Blade, directed by Stephen Norrington and starring Wesley Snipes in the title role. The film is based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name.

The film's title is based on Matrix, with modifications made to the L, A and E. Matrix is also used for the above-title billing, tagline and credit block. Latin Condensed is used for billing text on the last poster presented here.

One sheet poster design by BLT Communications, LLC.

#1, Dracula Returns! (1973) with cover art by Harry Borgman

This is the first edition of the Dracula Horror Series, a.k.a. The Return of Dracula, written by Robert Lory (b. 1936) and published by Pinnacle Books between 1973 and 1975.

The typography is largely the same for all nine volumes, with Quaint Roman used for the titles and Contact Bold Condensed for the author’s name, the series title, and the teaser texts. On the cover for #7, Contact got replaced by the similar Monotype Clarendon Condensed for the teaser. And on the last two volumes, these texts are set in Record Gothic Heavy Condensed.

[More info on ISFDB]

#2, The Hand of Dracula! (1973) with cover art by Harry Borgman

#3, Dracula’s Brothers (1973) with cover art by Harry Borgman

#4, Dracula’s Gold (1973) with cover art by Harry Borgman

#5, The Drums of Dracula (1974) with cover art by J. Thompson

#6, The Witching of Dracula (1974)

#7, Dracula’s Lost World (1974) with cover art by Victor Valla

#8, Dracula’s disciple (1975) with cover art by Victor Valla

#9, Challenge to Dracula (1975) with cover art by Victor Valla

Source: www.amazon.co.uk License: All Rights Reserved.

Poster for The Velvet Vampire, featuring Moon Flair, Toronado Interlock, Franklin Gothic Condensed, Univers, Neue Auora VIII, and News Gothic Condensed.

The Velvet Vampire is a 1971 American vampire film directed by Stephanie Rothman. It was distributed by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, and put on a double bill with Scream of the Demon Lover, a 1970 Spanish-Italian horror film by José Luis Merino and originally called Ivanna. The posters and other promotion for the two films feature strong imagery – and some lesser known typefaces.

The title typeface for The Velvet Vampire is called Moon Flair. This all-caps face with “Shotgun” counters is shown by Lettergraphics in their 1976 catalog (but not yet in the 1969 edition), without designer credits. Digital interpretations include Velvet Teen (Pink Broccoli, 2008) and Velvet Vampire (GautFonts, 2019). Both fonts are based on the material designed for the film, and hence are not faithful to the original beyond the glyphs featured in this use.

“She’s waiting to love you … to death” is set in another anonymous design from the Lettergraphics library – this phototype company was located in Culver City, California, and hence in close proximity to Hollywood. Toronado Interlock was shown already in 1968. There likewise is a digitization by Pink Broccoli, under the name Troubled PB (2019).

Source: www.amazon.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Poster for Scream of the Demon Lover, featuring Burst Caps, Marschall, Neue Aurora IX, and Venus Condensed.

On the poster for Scream of the Demon Lover, the title is set in Burst Caps. Again, this is a phototype design of unclear origin. The bold sans-serif caps with burst pattern in each glyph appear in Lettergraphics’ 1976 catalog. There are digizations by David Rakowski (as Starburst, 1990) and, more complete, by Dan X. Solo as Burst (1999).

“A walking corpse lusts for revenge” probably is in Monmart, which was the name Lettergraphics used for their phototype adaptation of Marschall. Other aliases for this German design from 1905 include Elefante and Domingo.

Shout-out to John Michael Cozzoli for sharing images of the double bill press book on Zombos’ Closet.

Source: www.zomboscloset.com From Zombos’ Closet by John Michael Cozzoli. License: CC BY-NC-ND.

Pages from the press book for The Velvet Vampire and Scream of the Demon Lover. “2 new smash chiller attractions from New World Pictures” is set in all-caps Akzidenz-Grotesk.

Source: www.zomboscloset.com From Zombos’ Closet by John Michael Cozzoli. License: CC BY-NC-ND.

Pages from the press book for The Velvet Vampire and Scream of the Demon Lover, with lobby stills. “Order from National Screen Service” uses Helvetica.

Source: www.zomboscloset.com From Zombos’ Closet by John Michael Cozzoli. License: CC BY-NC-ND.

Pages from the press book with ads for The Velvet Vampire and Scream of the Demon Lover. “Order from National Screen Service” uses Akzidenz-Grotesk Italic.

Source: www.zomboscloset.com From Zombos’ Closet by John Michael Cozzoli. License: CC BY-NC-ND.

Pages from the press book with ads for The Velvet Vampire and Scream of the Demon Lover. The title of the latter is here also set in Artistik. “Double the shock” uses Ad Lib.

He leads the way to the Torment of the UNDEAD —

Publicity Gothic with Caslon Antique for the poster of Doctor Dracula.
From The Holding Coat:

When it comes to Independent-International, nothing is ever simple. Doctor Dracula is edited from Lucifer’s Women (1974). Director Al Adamson shot some new footage in 1981, edited it into the film and released it under its present title.

Credits are set in a phototype version of Deepdene Bold. The Independent-International logo uses Brush Script.

Bottleneck (Letraset, 1972) together with Pinto (Rapitype/Mecanorma, ca. 1969) in use for the book jacket of A Pictorial History of Horror Movies, edited by Denis Gifford and published by Hamlyn, London, in 1973. The art is by Tom Chantrell.

Read all about it – cats, bats, phantoms, apemen and green rubber monsters, all from the lost world and dark houses of the Golden Age of Horrorwood! Watch the Mummy rise bandaged from its tomb, see Frankenstein’s creation reach out to grasp the sun, listen to the howl of the werewolves when the iron tongue of midnight has struck twelve!
From Mélies’ magic to the hauntings of Hammer, Denis Gifford will take you, ‘Raven’-loving reader, racing along in his ghost-ridden rattle-trap, a hair-raising journey down the highway of horror. No stones are left unturned and the long lost rise up to snarl and smirk beneath the dusty beam of the projector. The cinema’s sorcerers stand before you, splendidly summoned by anartful pen: Lugosi, curiously cadenced, blood on his lips; Max Shreck, shadowy, dissolving at dawn; the silken-voiced and unseen Rains; Veidt, lady-snatching on the roof-tops; Price, waxing strong in his museum; Laughton, bowed beneath his hump; beasts, brutes and mutants; zombies, devil bats and masked beings; claymen and vampires; dinosaurs from a distant era, things from outer space and horrors from the deep – all clamour for attention. Jekyll becomes Hyde, Kong becomes King, Lon Chaney becomes everybody and Karloff remains stupendously himself, bestriding the age in his eighteen-pound boots.
It is a book to be read, studied, treasured, looked at and, above all, enjoyed, and if you have to put it down, be careful not to step on it – it may be Lon Chaney!

Eightball with swashes for a poster advertising a TV horror program with Boris Karloff on WOR-TV’s Channel 9, titled Fright Night. Designed by Ted Kliros with art direction from Richard Traeger, for Spiegel & Laddin / Jane Lander Associates, New York. Originally in color, the poster is reproduced in black and white in Graphis Posters 1977, with comment “Faces in green and yellow shades.”

The Rivals Of Dracula: A Century of Vampire Fiction, 1977. The two a’s from Bradley with their pointed terminals nicely echo the vampire’s fangs. [More info on ISFDB]

Printed in blood-red, Bradley unfurls its creepy qualities on the covers for a paperback series of horror anthologies. The three volumes were published by Corgi Books in 1977/1978, with cover art by the great surrealist artist John Holmes. Bradley brings the gothic feel of blackletter to the table, without the legibility issues of proper fraktur or textura faces. Secondary copy is set in Futura Bold and Extra Bold Condensed.

See also Bradley in use for Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein (1973) and for Interview With The Vampire (1976).

The Rivals of Frankenstein: A Gallery of Monsters, 1977. The ascender of Bradley’s k was trimmed to enable a compact setting without overlap. [More info on ISFDB]

The Rivals of King Kong: A Rampage of Beasts, 1978. Bradley here is used with descending capitals.
[More info on ISFDB]

Christof Gassner’s Escher-esque Vexier for the one sheet (27″×41″) poster to an equally twisted movie; Space Mission to the Lost Planet (Independent-International, 1970). From Heritage Auctions:

Originally known as Horror of the Blood Monsters, this melange of a movie was put together by schlock auteur Al Adamson out of … not one … not two … but three different films, including a black and white Filipino monster movie. With additional scenes (shot by Vilmos Zsigmond of Close Encounters and The Deer Hunter), Adamson made a mess of a movie about space vampires and the scientists who travel to their planet to stop them. When Blood Monsters flopped, Adamson rereleased it four times under different titles, including this one. […] The artwork of stars John Carradine, Robert Dix and Vicki Volante was done by well-known comic artist Gray Morrow.

The actors’ names are set in Eurostile, “A fantastic adventure to a distant, hostile world!” in Univers Bold Italic.

Detail: originally drawn in outline, Vexier’s letterforms were filled in for more heft and better readability, sacrificing much of the design’s perspective ambiguity. With this treatment, it resembles an inverted version of Apache (Face).