The 1977 Alphabet Yearbook celebrates “Photo-Lettering, Inc.’s 40th year of service to the advertising and graphic arts industry”: the New York phototypesetting company founded by Ed Rondthaler first opened its doors for business in 1936.

The Yearbook was designed by Ed Benguiat, PLINC’s Type Director, with assistance from Tom Vasiliow. Most pages comprise the usual mix of one-line samples and exemplary settings. For page 99, though, the designers had some fun, and did a parody of the opening lines of The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, a.k.a. the United Stated Declaration of Independence, from July 4, 1776:

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to use bicentennial alphabets, Photo-Lettering Incorporated presents the largest selection available. We hold these alphabet styles to be

After thirteen lines – one for each of the founding states – the continuous sample text breaks off, but it’s self-evident how it continues.

Benguiat and Vasiliow used eleven styles from nine typefaces, all set in all caps, stacked and justified. Some of the more topical alphabets with stars and stripes were issued in the late 1960s, possibly in anticipation of the United States Bicentennial in 1976. Others are much older: Eighteen Ninety, Carousel and Eventide go back to the first half of the 20th century. The oldest design is Algonquin – it was first cast by the Dickinson Type Foundry in Boston around 1888.

From top to bottom, the featured styles are:

Brave and Free (uncredited, possibly derived from an existing plain style, before 1970)
Pacella Cobbler Shaded A (Vincent Pacella, late 1960s)
Cavanagh Eighteen Ninety (John Albert Cavanagh, before 1950, stretched)
Gonzales Pioneer Shaded (Francisco Gonzales, 1969)
Pacella Cobbler (Vincent Pacella, late 1960s)
Davison Carousel G (Dave Davison, before 1950)
Papirtis Washington (Charles Papirtis, 1967)
Pacella Monitor (Vincent Pacella, a variant of Cordina with stars and stripes, c.1968)
Carlyle Eventide (Paul Carlyle, c.1938)
Gonzales Pioneer A (Francisco Gonzales, 1969)
Algonquin Shaded (a.k.a. Algonquin Ornamented, John F. Cumming, c.1888)

© 1968 Photo-Lettering, Inc. Digital capture: Letterform Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.

“Murrayhill 2-2346” was Photo-Lettering’s telephone exchange number. The address is set in Top Billing.

In celebration of Ed Benguiat’s 90th birthday (born October 27, 1927), here’s one of my favorites of his designs. The cover doesn’t include his typefaces – the titling face is Dave Davison’s Arabesque – but it does feature a wonderful “Kaleidograph” (see below) of Benguiat’s groovy ’60s lettering.

Source: letterformarchive.org © 1968 Photo-Lettering, Inc. Digital capture: Letterform Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.

Fillmore posters by Wes Wilson and Victor Moscoso, 1967. Their lettering was a clear inspiration for the Pyschedelitypes series.

The Pschedelitypes collection is one of many themed brochures published by Photo-Lettering, Inc. (PLINC) in the 1960s and ’70s. This booklet was issued soon after the dawn of the Psychedelia music/art movement, showing new typefaces that capitalize on the lettering styles most famously seen in rock posters by San Francisco artists like Wes Wilson and Victor Moscoso.

Besides the typefaces, Psychedelitypes showcases a variety of far-out effects that PLINC offered to lettering clients, such as swirling and radial pattern fills (Psychemats), distortion lenses, and kaleidoscopic (Kaleidograph) layouts.

© 1968 Photo-Lettering, Inc. Digital capture: Letterform Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.

“Specimen lines on these pages illustrate typical applications of Photo-Lettering’s new Psychemat technique.”

© 1968 Photo-Lettering, Inc. Digital capture: Letterform Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.

A page demonstrating the “Kaleidograph”, a technique that was likely used for the cover design. On the right are samples of typefaces that would later be known as Village (outline/shadow version), Davison Arabesque, and Scorpio.

The images in this entry were shot by Letterform Archive using their high-fidelity digital capture standards and served here at a reasonable web resolution. For more type samples from Psychedelitypes, see this set of basic scans.

This PLINC ad in U&lc, Vol. 5, No. 1, March 1978 is among the first appearances of ITC Benguiat designed a few months before. It shows ligatures (AB, AE, AH, AK, AR, LA, SS) or “logo letters” not found in the digital version. The ornamental border emphasizes the Art Nouveau roots of Ed Benguiat’s typeface. He may have been the designer of this ad.