Rhode Montijo's The Halloween Kid is a children’s book published in 2010 by Simon & Schuster. The story revolves around the titular Halloween Kid, a cowboy whose mission is to save Halloween from pumpkin-sucking vampires and toilet paper-tossing mummies.

The title typeface is Foo, used here with heavy distortion. The name is added in FF Providence, with a modified j.

Italian 2 Foglio (39.25″×55″)

C’era una volta il West is the original Italian title of Sergio Leone’s epic spaghetti Western, known in English as Once Upon a Time in the West. The film starring Claudia Cardinale as Jill McBain and Henry Fonda as Frank was promoted in Italy with a series of posters that emphasize the cinematic aspect: each poster features a pair of juxtaposed black-and-white stills, shot by Angelo Novi.

Designer Folco Lucarini arranged the title in two crossing lines that levitate in the large whitespace above the scenes, further adding to the drama. The font in use is Playbill, which has become something like a typographic shortcode for the Wild West, together with other Italiennes, Egyptiennes, and related styles. The credit block is added in Letraset’s Compacta, likewise in all caps.

The posters were printed by Litoroma.

Italian 2 Foglio (39.25″×55″)

Locandina (13″×28″, cropped at the top)

This 1984 poster for the fully restored director’s cut of Once Upon a Time in the West features a two-color reproduction of the iconic opening scene.

The choice of typefaces seems to follow the two original posters, but in both cases it’s slightly off: the title and actors’ names are in an all-caps Italienne. Unlike on the Italian 1968 posters, it’s not Playbill, but the similar Figaro. The secondary font is neo-Jenson. With its “smiling” e, it’s not too far off of Goudy Heavyface as seen on the American posters from 1969.

Canadian One Sheet (27″×39.5″)

The West ain’t no place for a man

English-language posters for The Legend of Frenchie King (original French title: Les Pétroleuses), a satirical western comedy set in the Francophone town of Bougival Junction, Texas in 1888. The film was directed by Christian-Jaque and stars Claudia Cardinale and Brigitte Bardot.

The title at the top is set in a typeface with horizontally hatched Egyptian top and decorated Tuscan bottom halves, which were additionally given different colors in this application. According to Nicolete Gray, this design was shown in Britain by Figgins around 1870, but already much earlier by French foundries. Fonderie Typographique Française revived it in the 1950s as Romantiques No. 5.

In the bottom half, the title is shown in Quentin (c.1958), which I believe to be Filmotype’s copy of Carousel as drawn by Dave Davison for Photo-Lettering before 1950.

The names are set in Egyptian. This phototype adaptation of a battered French Clarendon was issued by VGC as part of their T.J. Lyons Antique Type Collection in 1967. The font included two to three alternates for most letters, with different “blemishes, for a more authentic look. What it didn’t offer were lowercase letters. That’s why the tagline was rendered in Playbill – the wear and tear of the glyphs here was added by hand.

All four dispay typefaces were available for VGC’s Photo Typositor at the time.

Claudia Cardinale died on 23 September 2025 at her home in Nemours, France. RIP.

British Quad (30″×40″) poster. Eat this, racist!

Young Brigham is a 1968 studio album by Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, a native New Yorker turned cowboy troubadour. The “Young Brigham” of the title was the name of Elliott’s horse (pictured on the album cover).

As Elliott put it: Young Brigham “was a Mormon horse cause he didn’t like hippies, very opinionated, I tried to teach him to smoke marijuana, but I don’t think he liked it very much.”

The album’s liner notes were written by Elliott’s friend Johnny Cash.

Art direction for the album is credited to Ed Thrasher, and the photograph of Elliott and Young Brigham was taken by Henry Diltz.

[More info on Discogs]

Detail of the cover typography featuring Madison with some of its alternates

The back cover typography additionally features Venus, News Gothic, and Helvetica.

Posters for Proboj (Crashing Thru, 1949), Graničarska Pravda (Range Justice, 1949), Potjera je završena, and Sjenke Zapada

In 1966, Mihajlo Arsovski designed a series of silkscreened movie posters for local distributor Kinematografi Zagreb. It promoted a collection of late 1940s American Westerns produced by the Poverty Row studio Monogram Pictures, starring the actors Johnny Mack Brown and Whip Wilson.

The posters feature high contrast color palettes and use just three different typefaces: Egyptienne Bold Condensed, Akzidenz-Grotesk, and Red Roses.

In 2018, Mirko Ilić, Croatian-born designer based in New York, commented:

For Western movie posters, from 1966, this is an extremely unusual look. They look more like Punk-Rock concert posters from the late 1970s. Furthermore, printing in silkscreen is quite an unexpected technique for movie posters.

Poster for Zakon Zapada (Law of the West, 1949)

Poster for Tragovi se ukrštavaju (Crossed Trails, 1948)

In this copy, not only are the colors a little different. Also, the eyes have lost all detail, due to a surplus in ink. As Mirko Ilić comments, “printing in silkscreen is quite an unexpected technique for movie posters.”

Poster for Skrivena opasnost (Hidden Danger, 1948)

Poster for U ime pravde (Gunning for Justice, 1948)

Poster for Zakon se vraća u dolinu revolveraša (The Law Comes to Gunsight, 1947)

Poster for Natrag po tragu

Poster for Potjera je završena

A compilation of nine country gems by Willie Nelson, first released in 1973 on RCA Camden. Shown here is the 1976 pressing by Pickwick Records, with a largely unchanged cover, except for the added blue frame with nooses. Illustration by Victor Kalin (1919–1991). The typography featuring contoured bichromatic Windsor is uncredited.

[More info on Discogs]

For Finnish rap artist Costi’s second Playmaker drop, the objective was to design a Western-and US-themed collection inspired by collegiate apparel, prominently featuring a distinctive collegiate-style with stretched Mesquite on a curve.

The collection includes two shirts in black and white and a crewneck with fitting track pants, all showcasing the same artwork in different styles. The track pants, as shown in the video, feature various college-type logos from up to down, inspired by several sport apparel from the NBA, incorporating the initials P and M for Playmaker. Additionally, the U-shaped horseshoe serves as a subtle reference to “University.”

For the logo on the track pants, we chose Vivaldi for its subtle and nostalgic feel. Its understated design ensures the logo blends in without standing out too much. In between the prints you can find a little quote – “There’s gold in the river” – written in the font used in his latest album cover for Coast to Costi, Celtic Garamond.

The “Sheriff” badge pairs Bernard Condensed with an unidentified slab serif.

Early Bird, or the Early Birds, was a country/skiffle band from Friesland, the Netherlands. Formed in 1963, the group was active until 1994. Between around 1969 and 1975, it went under the name Little Ben and His Drivers. The shown album with “country and westernsongs” was released in the Netherlands by Narcis Records as well as Iris Records, and in Germany by Coup Records. The typeface is Futura Display. Designed by Paul Renner and first cast in 1932, it was adopted for dry transfer lettering by Mecanorma around the time the album was released, and is shown in their 1970 catalog.

[More info on Discogs]

Poster made as a personal project to commemorate the release of Beyoncé’s album Act II: Cowboy Carter. The design is inspired by Chitlin’ Circuit posters. Printed copies are available from my print store.

Tecovas is an American cowboy boot and western apparel company based in Austin, TX. They've released so many fun ad campaigns this year through their agency of record, Preacher, including their "don't go gently" campaign. This holiday campaign uses Beverly Drive Right (designed by Amy Hood of Hoodzpah), Commuters Sans (by Dharma Type), and MVB Magnesium (by Mark van Bronkhorst) for a delightful and nostalgic feel.

Starring Thibault Chaplain, photographed by Bazil Lamy, written by César André, and designed by Maël Ravassard.

The book, with dimensions of 172 mm × 244 mm and comprising 132 pages, was printed on Munken Pure Rough paper of 120 g/m². Its binding, created with a square stitched spine and visible stitching, allows the book to lie flat. This feature proves particularly convenient for a photo book, providing the opportunity to admire double-page photos as they should be.

The Barry title featured on the book cover is lettering created specifically for this project. I will extend it into a complete display font.

For the body text, I use Tokotype's Frasa regular and italic fonts, which enhance the overall typographic experience. I like to use their Elzevirian numerals for the folio pages and table of contents.

Barry, Le Dernier Cowboy du Luberon was self-published in November 2023 in a limited edition of 200 copies – which we have sold out already.

Long before Edwin Shaar at Intertype added an Extra Bold to Paul Renner’s Futura series in 1952, Baltotype realized that there is potential in a heavyweight geometric sans. While most of their Airport series is a direct copy of Futura, Airport Black is an original addition, cut about 1943.

On this album cover from 1954, it’s used together with Franklin Gothic and less bold style from Futura (technically, it’s probably Airport, too). The song names are shown inside the cowboy’s lasso noose.

[More info on Discogs]

This Bonanza poster (21″×24″) with artwork by James Bama (1926–2022) was one of a special set of four posters commissioned by NBC in 1966 to promote their current season and offered to the general public through mail order. The other three posters in the set were for Man from U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart, and I Spy.

The featured typeface, Benguiat Buffalo, was first shown in Photo-Lettering’s 1964 Alphabet Supplement. The rounded all-caps Barnum came in three widths and offered a couple of alternates, including R with and without upward-pointing terminal, and V/W with and without base serifs. There were three forms for the letter A: no top serifs, a single-sided top serif to the left, and double-sided top serifs, as seen here.

House Industries’ digitization of Buffalo covers the Expanded style only. See Hubbard (T-26, 2004) for a – loose and uncredited – interpretation of the medium width by Joe Baldwin.

The New Black West is a fine art photography book, celebrating the modern Black cowboys of the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo and the community that comes together to witness their achievements year after year.

A powerful symbol of self-reliance, strength, and determination, the Black cowboy is a figure commonly overlooked in the histories of the American West. Held annually in cities across the United States, the rodeo honors the historic accomplishments of Black cowboys and fosters a vibrant community dedicated to continuing that legacy.

Bay Area photographer Gabriela Hasbun has spent more than a decade photographing this beloved event. Designer Allison Weiner from publisher Chronicle Books about her choice of typefaces:

...It was important that the title font be unexpected for a book about the rodeo. We wanted to make it clear from the cover that it was a fine art photography book, not a cultural history, and the modern sophistication of Cosi Azure helped achieve that... The other typefaces used were Conglomerate and Prensa.

El Loco is ZZ Top’s seventh studio album, released in 1981 by Warner Bros Records. From Wikipedia:

The band’s guitarist/singer Billy Gibbons has said that the recording of this album was the first time the three members of the band were isolated from one another in the studio, rather than recording simultaneously in the same room. It also foreshadowed ZZ Top’s synthesizer-driven direction later in the decade, with early experimentations in synthesizer backing on certain tracks.

Photography and design by photographer Bob Alford, under art direction of the band’s stalwart director Dennis Ritter. The single typeface used for all information from band name and album title to the credits on the back cover is Roger Excoffon’s Mistral — with every word and line set on an angle.

Per the band’s website today, bass player Dusty Hill (the shortest bearded band member) died in his sleep at age 72.

[More info on Discogs]

The second delivery of the new SS21 collection from Goodbois revolves around nostalgia-inspired looks from the United States and the Allgäu region in Germany. The knit sweater is the gate to the combination of sports and mature looks.

As you can easily see from the name and slogans, the primary font – Marlboro, URW’s version of Neo Contact – was adapted from a very well-known brand and coincidentally creates the same center with the shape and type of the letters.

“Alright” is designed to be very personal, which is reflected in the handwritten, graffiti-like look of the logo. Everything in here is part of the earlier delivery of mental care, the topic throughout the entire collection of SS21.

Creative direction: Goodbois.studios & Julian Schröpel
Photography: Nepomuk Boesker
Motion design: Florian Schröpel
Graphic design assistant: Nidus Müller & Curtis Spahl

A shaded version of Rustic No. 2 with color fill, paired with outlined caps from Franklin Gothic [edit: it’s Medium Condensed Gothic Outline, see comments], for the cover of an album with ten Hank Williams songs, recorded by ‘Slim’ Boyd, an alias for the American country and western musician best known as Curley Williams (1914–1970), released on Coronet Records as CX-112.

[More info on Discogs]

Carson turned Joe Connor’s Texas into a living Hell.

Phillip Boydell’s Festival Titling (Monotype, 1952) with customized solid letterforms, for the book cover of a Western novel by Kingsley West, published by Berkley Medallion in 1965.

The blazing story of a man who answered violence with violence and death with death.

Page No. 120 (1880) and Lydian (1938) for the cover of To Still the Guns by James Woodruff Smith, published by Pyramid Books (G655) in 1961.