Chwast Art Tone in early use and in all lowercase letters for a comedy album released in 1967 by Fontana Records. Johnny Melfi, Dorothy Van(n) and Jim Evering take “a comical look at your horoscope”. The design is by Kerig Pope (b. 1935).

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This just in…

An early example of the wild and wonderful Stromberg Graphic dated to 1966! For The Troggs’s debut US album (originally released as From Nowhere), the little known typeface created by Harvey Stromberg and issued by Photo-lettering is used in reverse for the album’s name and for the B-side’s opening track, “With A Girl Like You”. Along with that, the trailblazing Cooper Black appears as the typeface below the title for additional songs on the album, with Monotype Grotesque for the tracks and Jere Real’s liner notes on the back. An alternate design for the album eliminates Stromberg in favor of Airport Black, except for the band name.

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The catalog number uses Microgramma.

Detail from back cover

Alternate cover

From Wikipedia:

“Je t’aime… moi non plus” (French for “I love you… me neither”) is a 1967 song written by Serge Gainsbourg for Brigitte Bardot. In 1969, Gainsbourg recorded the best known version with Jane Birkin. The duet reached number one in the UK, the first foreign language song to do so, and number two in Ireland, but was banned in several countries due to its overtly sexual content.

The single was first released by Philips under the Fontana label. According to photographer Jean D’Hughes, the Philips management in the Netherlands was outraged and demanded that the record be resold, and so it was released under the Lucien Morisse’s Disc AZ label, still with the same photo, but with different typography featuring Eckmann. The song was initially also included on the LP that followed in June 1969, but was removed from later repressings.

The typefaces used for the original pressing shown here are Pascal by José Mendoza y Almeida, sometimes described as the French (or Latine) answer to Optima; Karl Erik Forsberg’s Berling, in italic with tight-and-touching letterspacing; and a bold extended style from Adrian Frutiger’s Univers.

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Jane Birkin died today at the age of 76. RIP.

Spanish pressing

Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg is an album recorded by Jane Birkin together with Serge Gainsbourg in 1968. It was first released by Fontana Records in June 1969, including the hit single “Je t’aime… moi non plus”. On later pressings, the controversial duet was replaced by “La Chanson De Slogan”.

The contoured caps are from a typeface named Comstock. The text on the back cover is set in various styles from Folio, a grotesk that went under the name Caravelle in France. The photography is by Jean D’Hughes and an unnamed artist credited as “X”.

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Jane Birkin died today at the age of 76. RIP.

1975 pressing without “Je t’aime… moi non plus” (but with unchanged cover art)

1970 album from American drummer and singer Buddy Miles, issued shortly after his membership in the short-lived Band of Gypsys along with guitarist Jimi Hendrix and bassist Billy Cox. The title cut is considered his best-known tune, and was also performed with Hendrix on the Band of Gypsys album.

The title and artist are set in Caslon Open, with a gold embossed effect on the original album cover. On the back cover, the song titles are likewise set in Caslon Open, with credits in an unidentified serif.

Album design by Richard Germinaro, with art direction from Desmond Strobel and photography by Burnell Caldwell. John Craig consulted on the design.

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Gatefold

Back cover

Alternate cover for the Netherlands issue of the album on Fontana, with artist and title in Windsor Elongated

An EP record with four songs by Norman Maine and his orchestra, including the rock calypso hit “When” (“Viens”), released by Fontana Records in 1958. The sleeve features three typefaces that were designed or co-designed by Roger Excoffon.

The star role is assigned to his Choc. Used mostly in all lowercase and with ample letterspacing, the glyphs of this energetic brush script almost start to look as if they were from some foreign writing system. The casual shapes appear even coarser than usual: chances are they were cut by hand. This is supported by the fact that repeating letters aren’t identical, see for example the i’s or the counters and terminals in the a’s.

“Viens” is set in caps from Vendôme, and “par l’orchestre de” in Aurora V [edit: Venus breit fett, see comments], a design that was known in France under the name Marocaines. The back combines Chambord (distinguished from the earlier Peignot by the blunt-top A and the closed R) and Metro.

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From Wikipedia:

The New Vaudeville Band was a group created by songwriter Geoff Stephens [1934–2020] in 1966 to record his novelty composition “Winchester Cathedral”, a song inspired by the dance bands of the 1920s and a Rudy Vallee megaphone-style vocal. To his surprise, the song became a transatlantic hit that autumn, reaching the Top 10 in the United Kingdom and rising to #1 in the United States. Initially a studio group composed of session players, Stephens quickly assembled a permanent group to continue recording and to play live shows. The New Vaudeville Band placed several singles in the US and UK top 40 through 1967 before dissolving.

The Winchester Cathedral album was released by Fontana Records in 1966. While the British release has a photographic cover with Broadway, this post shows the US version with an illustration by Bob Post. It’s paired with Broadway Condensed. Its round forms for e, a, w, the triangular i dot, and the Futura Black-like r with the separated dot make it a much more animated design than its wider precursor. “The Original Hit!” is set in caps from Akzidenz-Grotesk’s breit fett style; “Monaural MGF 27560” is in Copperplate Gothic.

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Source: www.ebay.com discorama2002. License: All Rights Reserved.

Juliette Gréco – 4ème Série (1956), front cover. The pink text is in two weights from Peignot.

The fourth album by French actress and singer Juliette Gréco was released in 1956 by Fontana Records. The cover features her name in condensed blue capitals made from straights and arches. These letterforms are taken from an alphabet design by Swiss graphic artist Walter Haettenschweiler (1933–2014), which he simply named Grotesk.

It was reproduced in the first volume of Lettera. Edited by Armin Haab and Alex Stocker, this “standard book of fine lettering” was published by Niggli in 1954. Graphic designers used Lettera as a source of inspiration, but also in a direct way, making settings from reproductions of the depicted letterforms. The showing of Haettenschweiler’s Grotesk consists of a full capital alphabet, complemented by an application of a matching lowercase.

Source: www.flickr.com Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

Walter Haettenschweiler’s Grotesk as shown in Lettera 1 includes a capital alphabet (A–Z plus exclamation mark) and a partial matching lowercase (“schenk ein buch”), both shown in reverse.

In the preface to the third edition, Armin Haab tells the genesis of this design, which he here refers to as Lettera-Grotesk. It goes back to a lettering style used by Pierre Gauchat (1902–1956) in 1953 for a poster advertising books. This style was further developed at the School of Applied Arts (the Kunstgewerbeschule) in Zurich, amongst others by Walter Haettenschweiler, who referenced Gauchat’s lettering in a student project. When Haab saw this work, he asked Haettenschweiler to draw a full alphabet for the projected lettering source book. “Thanks to LETTERA this type rapidly attained great popularity not only in Switzerland but also abroad.”

Source: poster-auctioneer.com Guido Tön AG. License: All Rights Reserved.

Poster design by Pierre Gauchat for the SBVV (Swiss Booksellers and Publishers Association) from 1953, titled Schenkt Bücher (“Give books”). This appears to be the poster mentioned by Haab.

Source: awarded-poster.com Guido Tön AG. License: All Rights Reserved.

Gauchat had used this style of lettering already in 1951 for a similar poster design. Note the use of a macron-like bar for the umlaut, a form that was promoted by Walter Käch, long-time teacher at the Kunstgewerbeschule.

Source: www.flickr.com Scan:  Philipp Messner. License: CC BY-NC.

Gauchat applied this style to capital letters, too. His seal for the City of Zürich was designed in 1953. Reproduced from Armin Tschannen / Walter Bangerter: Grafik einer Schweizer Stadt, Zürich, 1963.

With its horizontally cropped tops and bottoms, Lettera-Grotesk is similar to Kino, a typeface designed by Martin Dovey for Monotype in 1930, but more slender and less stiff. Lettera-Grotesk almost looks like the result of a modular approach; the letterforms are composed of few simple, separate strokes. In this regard, it’s also related to Banco. Thanks to its slope and the bold tapered stems of varying height, Roger Excoffon’s popular design from 1951 is much more dynamic, though.

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

From left to right: Kino (1930), Lettera-Grotesk (1954), Banco (1951).

A phototype adaptation of Lettera-Grotesk – very likely unauthorized – is shown as Maharaja in Dan X. Solo’s Condensed Alphabets: 100 Complete Fonts (Dover, 1986). I’m aware of two amateur digital interpretations; Panelite by Thomas E. Harvey (1993), with added numerals and a few punctuation and currency glyphs), and HFF Sultan of Swat (2010), based on Maharaja and named after the sample text used in the Solotype catalog from 1992, with a few added capital glyphs.

The French word gréco refers to Greece. I wouldn’t be surprised if Haettenschweiler’s caps were chosen for Juliette Gréco’s album cover for their archaic look, which is evocative of ancient Greek letterforms. The name in Lettera-Grotesk is set on a black-and-white photograph by Guibaud. In the bottom left corner, there are the initials “Y. K.”, which appear to be the designer’s signature. The cover was printed by F.G. Richir, Paris.

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In memoriam Juliette Gréco, who died this week at the age of 93.

Source: www.ebay.com discorama2002. License: All Rights Reserved.

Juliette Gréco – 4ème Série (1956), back cover. The name is in caps from Chambord. The track list is set in Futura, or Europe, as it was known in France.

This is the German version of Mr. Fantasy, but with 3 different titles. It has all the single hits on their Mr. Fantasy, so it's more a Greatest Hits LP. In that time a great collection. In 1967 all Island Records were distributed through Phonogram and their sublabel Fontana, no Island logo.

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Hardcover, Beltz & Gelberg, 1977

Lollipop is one of the more than 100 books by Austrian writer Christine Nöstlinger (1936–2018). A graphic artist by trade, Nöstlinger turned to writing in 1970 with Die feuerrote Friederike (Fiery Frederica), which she illustrated herself.

The majority of Nöstlinger’s production is literature for children and for young people … She centres on the needs of children in her work, with an anti-authoritarian bent. She does not shy away from tackling difficult subjects like racism, discrimination and self-isolation.

Nöstlinger is considered one of the most influential writers of German children’s literature, and was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1984. In 2013, she received the inaugural Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, together with Maurice Sendak.

This book from 1977 is about an adolescent boy nicknamed Lollipop and his sorrows and woes. He has no dad, his older sister often picks quarrels with him, and he’s scared of dogs. Old grocer Otto is about his only friend. Lollipop falls in love with the beautiful Evelyn, but his pocket money is not enough to ask her out, so he starts to steal from his mom. Everytime the going gets tough, he turns to his beloved green lollipops, which seem to have magical powers.

The first edition is illustrated by Angelika Kaufmann (*1935), who studied at Vienna’s University of Applied Arts, just like Nöstlinger. The cover typography combines Pluto Outline (with yellow and green fill) and tightly spaced Herkules, set on a curve.

Cover of the audio version, Fontana Records, 1978

An early 1960s Joe Tex song. Great song – from both > VIP’s & Joe Tex.