Fonts from the Flea Market #1439

Adam & Eve were a – very blonde – schlager music pop duo from Germany. Founded in 1966 by Eva Bartova (1938–1989) and John Christian Dee (1944–2004), the latter was replaced by a new Adam in 1967, Hartmut Schairer (b. 1946). Released in 1972, Wenn die Sonne erwacht (“When the sun awakens”) was their third studio album.

The cover design combines three typefaces that were available from Letraset at the time: Stack by Les Lawrence, Linear by Fred Lambert, and Welt-Antiqua Extra Bold for the ampersand.

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Fonts from the Flea Market #1304

A bicolor application of Letraset’s Plaza Inline, paired with Flash Bold on an angle, for the sleeve to Mike Krüger’s 1980 single “Der Nippel”. The comedy schlager that pokes fun at nonsensical user manuals and operating instructions was a #1 hit in Germany and Austria. The song is taken from an album of the same title (and with the same cover design) that was performed live at Saalbau Witten in January 1980, recorded and mixed by Conny Plank.

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Fonts from the Flea Market 1421

This single by the Dutch group around singer George Baker a.k.a. Hans Bouwens was released in 1970, from their second album, Love in the World. A follow-up to their 1969 hit “Little Green Bag”, it made the Top Ten in the Netherlands and Belgium.

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“Popalp” is a piece of 1970s Swiss pop oddity produced by Michel Neuville and performed by Hermann Studer and his ensemble of alphorn players. The cover for the French release on the Seabird label depicts the Alps, but avoids the stereotypical choice of Helvetica and instead features Marianna. The balloon-like face by Samoan New Zealand designer Joseph Churchward was available in France from Hollenstein Phototypo.

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The Lennon Sisters were known for their performances on the Lawrence Welk Show. This album showcases their style which was often characterized by soft harmonies and covers of popular songs from the era.

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Detail from the back cover, showing the band name in Benguiat Discotheque Contour B.

From Wikipedia:

Werner Müller (1920–1998) was a German composer, kapellmeister and conductor of light classical music and, to a greater extent, popular music. In some of his works, he collaborated with Caterina Valente and Horst Fischer, the trumpeter.

On the cover of this album released in 1958 by Decca Records, the title in red with black outline is set in Filmotype Vision, with the artist’s name in News Gothic

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American born artist Peggy March enjoyed success in Europe with singles like A-side “Ich weiß, ich verlieb' mich noch heute in dich” which charted at #38 in Germany.

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Tabasco Bold with some of its extending alternates, on the cover of an album released on the occasion of the Bundesgartenschau 1975 – Germany’s biennial federal horticultural show – in Mannheim.

Local musicologist Klaus Hiltscher a.k.a. Affendaddy, the Rock’n’Roll Accountant, comments (translated from the German):

Just discovered in my archive. An unfortunate LP. In 1975, a year in which every young person in Mannheim between 10 and 39 had completely different interests than choirs, folk music and marches, such an LP was released. I had this LP in my record department at Musikhaus Pfeifer for a year and nobody, absolutely nobody, was interested in it. Okay, we were a rock & pop store, but we also sold Joy Fleming, Die Hemshof Friedel, and Joana, but this LP was totally out of place. Not the slightest touch of 1975 modernism. Probably sponsored by the Mannheimer Morgen!

The Hunter from Kurpfalz as drawn by comedian Loriot served as the mascot for the Bundesgartenschau.

Designed by John N. Schaedler and originally issued for phototypesetting, two weights of Tabasco were added to the Letraset range in 1974, and consequently saw wider dissemination.

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The back cover with the city’s marketing copy in three languages is set in Univers.

German schlager album by French chanteuse Jacqueline Boyer (b. 1941), released in 1971.

Cover designer Bernhard Wetz used Crayonette with its caps raised to the baseline, as it was common in the days of phototype and dry-transfer lettering. The specific version seen here has slightly simplified glyphs for A H P (cf. this album cover) and also an E that’s different from the original’s. Such an extended version was available at the time from Berthold Fototype as Crayonette Flair. Lettergraphics in California carried it as Crayon Flair.

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Fonts from the Flea Market #1306

Austrian re-release from 1978 of a single by German schlager trio Nilsen Brothers, originally issued in 1963. The uncredited sleeve designer at Ariola Records paired two quite different typefaces: Artistik, a painterly Art Nouveau oddity from 1898, and ITC Bauhaus, Ed Benguiat’s 1970s interpretation of Herbert Bayer’s quest for an Universal Alphabet.

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“Mit 66 Jahren” is a schlager song by Austrian singer Udo Jürgens (1934–2014), released in December 1977 as a single from his album Lieder, die auf Reisen gehen. It spent a total of fifteen weeks in the German charts, and was later covered by Chris de Burgh as “Life begins at 66”.

The typography pairs caps from Binner, squeezed and with a compact umlaut, with Plantin Bold Condensed. The cover of the album was designed by Manfred Vormstein. It’s not clear if he worked on the single sleeve as well.

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Fonts from the Flea Market #1191:

The elusive MS Bold, spotted on the sleeve of one of the many cheesy singles by German Schlager singer and songwriter Martin Mann. MS Bold – no relation to Microsoft (est. 1975) – is a film typeface of unclear origin. The bold sans with rounded corners and stencil-like bridges is shown in catalogs by Lettergraphics (ca. 1968?), London-based typesetting studio Conways (1974), and Typeshop (ca. late 1970s, not yet in 1973).

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Christoph Ehbets was not the only designer working for Amiga Records who recognized the display qualities of Forest House. His colleague Klaus Vonderwerth (1936–2016) used the contoured and shaded slab serif, too. This sleeve is for a single by schlager singer Klaus Müller (1943–2000), released in 1965 under his first stage name, Ten Oliver. From 1967 on, he became known as Klaus Sommer.

Song titles, credits and all other small print is set in several weights from Super-Grotesk, a 1930s sans serif by Arno Drescher that has been nicknamed the GDR’s Futura.

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May 29th is National Paperclip Day in the USA! Let’s celebrate with a use of the Paperclip typeface. The all-lowercase design was conceived by Dutch graphic artist Ad Werner (1925–2017) – who had studied under Gerrit Kiljan, Paul Schuitema and Piet Zwart, see his profile on Graphic Design Roots. Can you spot the constructivist influences?

Paperclip was issued for dry transfer lettering by Mecanorma in 1973. A year later, it appeared on the cover of a single by (then married) Belgian-Italian couple Catherine Spaak and Johnny Dorelli. The titles of the Italo-Schlager songs are rendered in ITC Avant Garde Gothic, also in all lowercase, tightly spaced, and with some of its alternate glyphs (e, v) and a modified c. The design is credited to “Reparto tipolitografico CBS-SUGAR”, i.e. the record company’s in-house design department in Milano, Italy.

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Siegfried used in all caps on the German sleeve of an early single by Israeli actress and singer Daliah Lavi (1942–2017). The J here was bereft of its descender, for a more compact line. H was given a more conventional form – in Siegfried, this letter features an enlarged minuscule form. Via Büro Destruct’s Fonts From The Flea Market 532.

“Bye, Bye, Birdie” seems to be the first and the only single recorded by Schlager duo Peter & Felix. It was produced by Drafi Deutscher. The names are in Anonymous. The song titles are set in Bentley which came in five styles, each with Biform variants.

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The title of the B-side “Gestern war es noch Liebe” accidentally has the Dutch spelling for “noch”.

Spring is the other typeface by French designer Bernard Jacquet of Jackson fame. Originally released with Mecanorma, it was revived as Jojo in 2005. Canada Type credit it to Bernice (sic) Jacquet. The ‘B’ is custom made by adding a top bowl to the ‘b’.

Artistik is an Art Nouveau typeface that started out as Artistic, a 1898 metal typeface by Bauer & Co. In the 1970s, it was available as a Letraset face. Fortunately, the digital version seems to offer all the alternates that would be necessary to recreate this cheesy Flemish record cover (“This isn’t the end of the world”) by Paul Severs.

If you dig this style, make sure to check out Chris Vandenbroucke’s huge collection of Belgian vinyl covers.