Szemet ​adtam neked, s te a sötétségbe néztél (“I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness”) is an audacious and entrancing novel in which the lines between the dead and the living, past and present, story and history are blurred. In it, Irene Solà draws on oral tradition as well as art, literature, and fairy tales to tell a completely new kind of story.

This novel is a carnival cavalcade of memory and forgetting, reality and fairy tales, light and darkness, with lots of color, desire and magic.

Irene Solà (b. 1990) is a Catalan writer. In 2020 she won the European Union Prize for Literature.

Opening credits

From Wikipedia:

Aaahh!!! Real Monsters is an American animated television series developed by Klasky Csupo for Nickelodeon. [...] The show focuses on three young monsters—Oblina, Ickis, and Krumm—who attend a school for monsters under a city dump and learn how to frighten humans. Many of the episodes revolve around their zany hijinks after making it to the surface in order to perform "scares" as class assignments. The series premiered on October 29, 1994, and aired until November 16, 1997.

The titles and credits use Snort, a custom font designed for the show by László Nosek. Snort was also used on merchandise, and was made available to the public in 1999 as part of the Nick-O-Matic Design Factory art software.

Episode title card

End credits

Toys with packaging featuring text in Snort

Back, showing text in Mister Frisky and Uncle Stinky (now known as Professor Minty) as well as Helvetica Condensed

Cover of the book Stage Fright! (Simon & Schuster, 1997), using Snort for the title; other text is in Woody Normal and Avenir Black.

Temporary tattoos included with Stage Fright!, some of which also use Snort.

The Radio Planet is a science fiction novel written by Roger Sherman Hoar (1887–1963) under the pseudonym of Ralph Milne Farley. The third instalment in his Radio Man series, it was first serialized in Argosy, in six parts, starting 26 June, 1926.

This is the first book edition, published as Ace Book F-312 in 1964, with cover art by John Schoenherr. The (uncredited) typography combines Peignot Bold with Latin Bold.

Fun fact: in his other life, Hoar served as state senator and assistant Attorney General for the state of Massachusetts.

[More info on ISFDB]

This paperback edition of Invaders from the Infinite was published as Ace Science Fiction Classic M-154 about 1966, with cover art by Gray Morrow. John W. Campbell’s science fiction novel was first published by Gnome Press and Fantasy Press in 1961.

[More info on ISFDB]

The Kingfall typeface is used for headlines, initials, and chapter decorations of the manual book for the tabletop role-playing game from Mendercap. Dwellers Under the High Grave is a 56-page setting for the Ironsworn family of games, and Sundered Isles in particular. It draws inspiration from the early modern history, folklore and landscapes of Ukraine. Writing and layout by Michael Chumak, with illustrations by Roman Dubina. The text typeface is Equity.

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein was released theatrically by Netflix in October 2025. Described by del Toro as “a culmination of a journey that has occupied most of my life,” the film plays up the gothic elements of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel with elaborate costuming and sets, saturated colours, and expressive performances by its lead actors.

Prior to the film’s release, Netflix dropped several teaser trailers using Worthington Arcade – a classically-proportioned, capitals-only font from Device inspired by hand-painted architectural and civic lettering. Described by its designer Rian Hughes as “an attempt to create a peculiarly English titling typeface,” details such as raised crossbars on the H, E and F and extended lower leg of the E give the font an idiosyncratic elegance that complements the extravagant backdrop.

Key visuals from the film – lightning strikes, and the creature displayed on a crucifix-like structure – overlap and interact with the text throughout the trailers, to otherworldly effect.

Algonquin Ornamented in use for the title of Spaceling, a science fiction novel by Doris Piserchia (1928–2021). The shown hardback edition was published by Nelson Doubleday in 1978. From the back of DAW’s paperback:

The ability to see other-dimensional rings that float in Earth’s atmosphere was a late mutation of a few space-age humans. Daryl was under the care of the institution for muters, and she had discovered that if you jumped through the right ring at the right time it would land you in another dimensional world and another shape.

Spaceling is the story of Daryl’s desperate efforts to unravel the mystery of why she was being held captive and of what was really going on in a certain alien dimension. Because she was sure it was all bad and that someday everyone would thank her for the revelation.

But instead everyone was engaged in a wild effort to hold her down, to keep her on this Earth, and to keep the world simply intact!

[More info on ISFDB]

Algonquin is used in spaced caps, with the interior ornamentation printed in a separate color. The book jacket was designed by John Lisco, with wraparound art by Richard Corben.

Detail from the inner flap

Csillagok háborúja (Star Wars), 1979. The custom acute accents are simple squares. The secondary typeface is ITC Avant Garde Gothic. More info on StarWarsMoviePoster.com.

Tibor Helényi (1946–2014) was a Hungarian painter, graphic designer, and poster artist. Among his most famous works are the posters he created for the original Star Wars trilogy, commissioned by MOKÉP, Hungary’s state-owned film distributor. Today, the posters are sought-after collector’s items.

The typeface Helényi used for the titles is Langdon Biform. Characterized by triangular notches, the boxy design is by John Langdon (b. 1946). To most people, the graphic designer and retired typography professor is best known for his ambigrams, and especially those he made for Dan Brown’s 2000 novel, Angels & Demons.

Langdon Biform is an early work of his, drawn in 1971 when he was in his mid-twenties, years before embarking on a career as freelance logo designer, type specialist, and lettering artist. Langdon submitted the design to a competition organized by Californian phototype company Lettergraphics, who added it to their library of typefaces. It didn’t take long before it was copied by other type providers. I’m aware of at least six digitizations, under various names including Lampoon, Harpoon ART, and Dominion, none of which were authorized by its original designer.

In a 2014 interview, Helényi was asked about a debate among fans who wondered whether he’d even watched Star Wars before designing the poster. After all, his art includes creatures that don’t appear in the film. Helényi laughingly replied that he indeed had seen the film, and that he had a lot of fun with designing the poster. In addition to his impressions from the advance screening, he also worked from lobby cards.

You can learn more about Helényi and see more of his work at his official website (maintained by his daughter Flora) and also at Budapest Poster Gallery.

A Birodalom visszavág (The Empire Strikes Back), 1982. Subtitle and credits are added in Univers Bold. More info on StarWarsMoviePoster.com.

A Jedi visszatér (Return of the Jedi), 1984. The secondary typeface for this poster is Univers Extended. More info on StarWarsMoviePoster.com.

The original painted art created for the posters was sold in Budapest Poster Gallery’s Tibor Helenyi Estate Auction in 2015, alongside many other items by the artist.

Glyph set for Langdon Biform with its fifteen alternates, as shown in the “Do a Comp” fan by Lettergraphics International Inc., 1968–1975

Mockup of Foster’s Book of Yōkai, designed by Kevin Barrett Kane

For this collector’s edition repackaged book, I opted to spice things up with yōkai literally running across the cover in a sort of battle/chase sequence that brought energy and play to the cover design. Luckily, and naturally, the art program was well-suited for this concept!

Title page

Part opener

Table of contents

Sample spread of Foster's Book of Yōkai, designed by Kevin Barrett Kane.

Star Rangers (Aug. 1979) [More info on ISFDB]

Accelera is an all-caps typeface shown by Photo-Lettering in their Alphabet Thesaurus Vol. 3 from 1971, without individual design credits. The extrabold rounded sans is distinguished by a triple South shade. It was offered in five variants named A to E. In A, letterforms and shades are all open. B has open letterforms and solid shades. It’s reversed in D. In Accelera C, the first and third shades are filled in. Finally, all parts are solid in E.

The most extensive use of Accelera that I’m aware of is for a series of science fiction novels by Andre Norton (1912–2005), published in paperback by Fawcett Crest between 1979 and 1981. Apparently three shadows were considered insufficient to hint at the depth of Norton’s adventures in space: in the first volumes, the number of typographic echoes was cranked up to a whopping eight, printed in alternating colors. In later additions, it was decided that a double shadow is enough.

No typographer is credited. The cover art is by Scottish artist Ken Barr (1933–2016).

Synopsis and blurbs on the front and back are set in several styles from Antique Olive, with Antique Olive Compact being used for the title.

The five variants of Accelera as shown in Photo-Lettering’s One-Line Manual of Styles, 1971

Shadow Hawk (Nov. 1979) [More info on ISFDB]

Judgment on Janus (Dec. 1979) [More info on ISFDB]

Victory on Janus (Jan. 1980) [More info on ISFDB]

Star Gate (March 1980) [More info on ISFDB]

Catseye (April 1980) [More info on ISFDB]

Sea Siege (May 1980) [More info on ISFDB]

Dread Companion (Aug. 1980) [More info on ISFDB]

Dark Piper (Sep. 1980) [More info on ISFDB]

Huon of the Horn (Oct. 1980) [More info on ISFDB]

Postmarked the Stars (Dec. 1980) [More info on ISFDB]

Operation Time Search (Feb. 1981) [More info on ISFDB]

Transit to Scorpio, Nov. 1974 [More info on ISFDB]

From Wikipedia:

The Dray Prescot series is a sequence of fifty-two science fiction novels and a number of associated short stories of the subgenre generally classified as sword and planet, written by British author Kenneth Bulmer under the pseudonym of Alan Burt Akers.

The first four books in the first subseries – also known as the Delian Cycle – were published in the U.K. by Orbit Books, with cover art by Chris Achilléos. Titles and author name are set in a phototype version of Gothic Bold, originally a wood typeface first shown in 1889.

Or maybe it’s two different phototype versions? If you look closely, you can see that the letter W on the third cover looks different from the one on the fourth. The heavy variant in “Warrior” matches Skidoo Caps, a variant shown by Lettergraphics in 1968. The W in “Swordships” is the one found in the Headliners version named MP 334, which stays closer to the original.

The Suns of Scorpio, 1974 [More info on ISFDB]

Warrior of Scorpio, Feb. 1975 [More info on ISFDB]

Swordships of Scorpio, May 1975 [More info on ISFDB]

First published by Faber & Faber in 1967 as An Age, this science fiction novel by English writer Brian W. Aldiss was renamed Cryptozoic! for the first U.S. edition by Doubleday in 1968. A year later, Avon brought out the first paperback edition, with cover art by Don Punchatz. A second printing, still with Thorowgood Sans Shaded for the type but with different cover art, followed in 1972. Shown here is the third printing from 1977.

This time the display typeface is Sintex, designed by Aldo Novarese and issued by VGC around 1970. To be more precise, it isn’t the original Sintex, but a copy that added a large number of alternates. One of the added extra glyphs is the S in the author’s name. It looks too heavy and out of place, certainly next to the lighter “ALDI”. The extended copy of Sintex appears under the name Hopfen in catalogs by Castcraft (1978) and FotoStar (after 1981). Already in 1974, Formatt offered a version for dry-transfer lettering named Keyhole. It has the same alternates as Hopfen, but is distinguised by scaled-down lowercase glyphs. I don’t know which came first, Hopfen or Keyhole.

The second line with the title is stretched.

The cover illustration is credited to Don Ivan Punchatz on the copyright page. According to ISFDB, “[t]his art differs from the Punchatz-credited art of the first printing. It’s possible that the publisher failed to update the cover art credit for this printing. There is speculation that it might be the work of Dean Ellis.”

The back cover features another alternate from Hopfen a.k.a. Keyhole: the top-heavy D isn’t part of the original Sintex.

Robert Sheckley’s science fiction novel Mindswap was first featured in the June 1965 issue of Galaxy magazine and first published in book form in 1966. Shown here is the paperback edition by Pan Books from 1974, with uncredited cover art.

The typeface is Gothic Bold, an all-caps design with horizontal contrast that originated in wood and was first shown by the Hamilton Manufacturing Co. in 1889. It arguably influenced similar designs from the 1960s and 1970s, like Beat Star, Sintex, and Zipper. Gothic Bold itself was revived for phototype, too: one such version was offered as part of the Morgan Press Collection by Headliners from around 1968.

About the book:

In the future, interstellar travel to alien worlds will be too expensive for most ordinary people. It certainly is for Marvin, a college student who wants to take a really good vacation. And so he signs up for what he can afford, a mindswap, in which your consciousness is swapped into the body of an alien lifeform. But Marvin is unlucky, and finds himself in the body of an interstellar criminal, a body that he has to vacate fast. But that criminal consciousness has stolen Marvin’s earthly body, and Marvin has to find a body on the black market.

[More info on ISFDB]

Hosted at Somerset House in London, co-curated by Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard and Claire Catterall, The Horror Show! was a journey to the underbelly of Britain’s cultural psyche. The exhibition presented an alternative perspective on the last five decades of modern British history in three acts – Monster, Ghost and Witch. Recast as a story of cultural shapeshifting, each section interpreted a specific era through the lens of a classic horror archetype with thematically linked contemporaneous, new works and a survey of the counter-culture of the time. We were tasked with designing all 2-D aspects of the show. The graphics inside the exhibition, the marketing, publicity and the catalogue. Each one needed to fit seamlessly with the other and explain the complexity of the exhibition in a sympathetic form.

To accompany the exhibition, The Horror Show! catalogue is constructed with a unique, irregular concertina fold. When closed, this features a “Frankenstein’s monster” face, grotesquely confronting the viewer. Whilst once open and fully extended, it is revealed that the face is made up of photographs of artworks and cultural figures from in the show. This collaged cut-up is a metaphor for British society, consisting of the mainstream and counter-culture, the two constantly pressing and grinding against each other. The back of the catalogue features the main collage used in the publicity for the show, with the addition of a very important key, so that you understand who everybody is in the image.

Once you have opened the catalogue, you are confronted with three sections which, as in the show, are designed completely differently from each other with contrasting typography and paper stocks for each. The Introduction section is dark black and takes its styling from the combined spaces in the show. Monster puts on the stinking clothes of Punk DIY. Ghost is grey and washed out, never fully materialising on the page. Witch is bold, proud, modern and old – daring you to disagree.

The catalogue design needed to refer to the decades in the exhibition – the 70s, 80s, 90s and onwards but also be something very contemporary. This meant a selection of fonts which referred to the era of the ‘feeling’ of each section but were used in a contemporary way. They are thrown up against each other in ugly juxtapositions, symbolising how counter-culture needs to push into the mainstream to change us all and move creativity and society forward. The layouts also referred to this historical context. The Monster section is based on the 70s and 80s and is an updated version of the DIY punk fanzine. Ghost is ethereal, with typography almost not there. Witch is bold, alchemic, and strongly gothic but looks towards the future as much as the past.

The title on the spine brings together Ouroboros, Infidel, Trickster, Nylon & Draylon, Bastard, Virus VujaDe, Terminal Grotesque, Tourette Extreme, and Bradley DJR (for the exclamation mark). The O’s are custom drawn pictograms.

Back cover: “A twisted tale of modern Britain” combines Ouroboros, Serpiente Display, Trickster, and Nylon & Draylon.

Text inside the mouth is set in Combat. The fonts used for the “MONSTER” letters include Ouroboros, Bastard, Trickster, Fleshy Font, and Newspeak

Spread with text set in T1 Korium and Combat. “Freak Scene” combines Gandur Alte with Trickster. Year dates are from Zloy.

The “Ghost” letters are taken from Lapicide and Marian Black. The italic for the text on the ear is from Faust.

More Marian Black and Lapicide, with Melancholia Italic used for captions

Captions feature Faust Italic, upright Melancholia, numerals from Gosna, and Tourette Normal.

The text on the left half of the eye is set in Ni Resolution Blackletter. The “WITCH” letters are from Infidel, Nylon & Draylon, Ni Resolution Blackletter, Virus VujaDe, and Prototype.

Titles feature overlapping letters from Ni Resolution Blackletter and Nylon & Draylon. The byline is in Terminal Grotesque, the text in Larish Alte.

More text in Larish Alte, with initials and page numbers from Ni Resolution Blackletter

Syn Godzilli is the Polish translation of Son of Godzilla, originally named 怪獣島の決戦 ゴジラの息子 (“Monster Island’s Decisive Battle: Godzilla’s Son”). Produced in Japan in 1967, the eighth film in the Godzilla franchise was brought to Poland by Centrala Wynajmu Filmów (CWF) in 1974.

Zuzanna Lipińska designed the poster. Her interpretation of Minilla ミニラ is rather cute than frightening: the lonely Baby Godzilla wanders around Solgell Island, blowing bubbles. For the title type, Lipińska went with Auriol. The typeface with its brush-like strokes was produced by Peignot & Fils around 1903 after designs by French artist George Auriol, whose work was influenced by Japanese art. Auriol the typeface has been linked to Japanese calligraphy and Japonisme in general, too.

Copies of the poster are currently available from PolishMoviePoster and Polish Poster Gallery.

Chilean design studio Comunas Unidas (run since 2004 by Myrna Cisneros and Manuel Córdova) was in charge of the art direction, illustration and design of the first vinyl LP by Chilean band La Golden Acapulco.

The design uses only the first version of the Mazúrquica typeface family in its original three weights (later, in 2020, Quintana-Font released a 2.0 version). The interior features a fold-out poster with handmade letterings.

[More info on Discogs]

The talented Korean artist Song Keong-a illustrated and designed this series of posters for the Korean Cultural House in Luxembourg, to celebrate the Korean Culture Day, in 2022 and 2023. She used the Perec typeface (PampaType) for the two posters below, and Foundry Sterling (The Foundry Types) for the one shown above.

From ISFDB:

The Storm Lord is a novel of an unknown planet and of the conflict of empires and peoples on that world. It is the story of a priestess raped and slain, of a baby born of a king and hidden among strangers, and of how that child, grown to manhood, sought his true heritage. It is a novel of alien gods and lost goddesses, of warriors and wanderers, and of vengeance long delayed.

There are a few different editions of this, but the first edition is notable for its use of the slightly obscure Soul.

Suntup Editions is publishing a new limited letterpress edition of Richard Matheson’s seminal horror novel Hell House from 1971. The story was the basis of the 1973 film The Legend of Hell House, and was referred to by Stephen King as “the scariest haunted house novel ever written”.

The new edition, set for release in summer of 2024, features illustrations from William Basso (who sadly passed away shortly after completing the illustrations), introduction by R.C. Matheson, foreword by Mike Flanagan, and afterword by Nancy A. Collins.

The edition is offered in three states: “Artist” (750 copies, with dust jacket), “Numbered” (250 copies, ostrich leg leather binding), and “Lettered” (26 copies, full ostrich leather binding with goatskin headbands in quarter goatskin box). Five orders of the book will also be selected at random to win a copy with a unique red colored spine.

The book was designed by Michael Russem (who has designed several other books for Suntup Editions) using the Fanwood typeface (based on Fairfield) for body text, and my own Margo typeface (based on classic film and bookjacket lettering) for titling, headings, and initials. I was happy to see Margo’s contextual alternate stairstep ‘ll’ pair make an appearance in the title.

The novel is broken up between dates and timestamped sections following the events of the story. Russem used large initial caps of Margo for new sections, however the initials appear partway into their respective lines, preceded by the smaller timestamp text. Stylized brackets from Monotype Bell enclose the running headers, facing ]out[, and page numbers, facing [in].

The book is available for preorder from Suntup Editions.

Front cover and spine to the Monster Series book on Frankenstein

Covers for the Monster Series from Crestwood House, a collection of 15 books published from 1977 mostly based on the monsters seen in the Universal Pictures films from the 1930s to the 1950s. The character titles for each book cover are set in an orange Neuland with white shadow or outline, sometimes on a curve or angle. The Monster Series logo/label uses Roberta. The back cover of each book aptly features the word “Monsters” set in Photo-Lettering's Monster, “from” set in an italic Times, and the Crestwood House publishers mark which appears to be based on Davida, albeit of lighter weight and more condensed proportions. The last page of each book also features a suggestion from King Kong set in Windsor. The spines and interior pages feature the author's name/s and text set in Optima.

Crestwood House is an imprint of the Macmillan Publishing Company.

Design is credited to Doris Woods, Randal M. Heise, Tammy Loe, and Baker Street Productions, Ltd.

Front covers to all 15 books in the Monster Series from Crestwood House

Last page of each book, featuring a suggestion from King Kong set in Windsor

Back cover, featuring PLINC's Monster