Source: www.ebay.it Photo: 3roby3 (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Clover was an Italian record label active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. For several of their maxi singles, they used a generic “12″ Special Disco” sleeve. The exclusively typographic design features Bronisław Zelek’s New Zelek (Mecanorma, 1974) and Colin Brignall’s Harlow (Letraset, 1977). The Clover logo seen on the label is in James H. Moore’s Moore Liberty (VGC, 1973).

The record included in the bag shown above is “Nowhere to Hide” / “Magic in the Groove” by French disco act Voyage. Label text is set in Simoncini’s Permanent.

The same design was also used by Dutch label CNR, starting in 1978. The only difference is the text “45 toeren” (Dutch for “45 rpm”). Their logo is in Microgramma. CNR also had color variants of the sleeve design.

[More info on Discogs]

Source: www.discogs.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.discogs.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.dba.dk License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.discogs.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.discogs.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.discogs.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.discogs.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Front of the album cover

OSiR is a trio of friends from Warsaw who grew up on Polish rap and British electronic music. Dygnitarz 808 and breakjanek are part of the 666VOLVO collective, while Frano Dead was one half of the duo Frano Bebun.

Tired of shallow lyrics and repetitive beats, they decided to create an album filled with bitter reflections and analog synthesizers. The album features 14 tracks, with guest appearances from DJ Cutahead, Stopatentów, Bebun, and Jakub Jan Bryndal.

The graphic design of OSiR’s self-titled album visually reflects the so-called “spirit” of the record and its lyrics. The overall aesthetic draws inspiration from the late communist era in Poland (late PRL) and the early 2000s, in line with the album’s name and its full meaning.

The concept was driven by research into the typography of that period and the deliberate use of a “dirty” or “lo-fi” visual layer to give the cover a sense of authenticity.

The author – Marcel Kaczmarek, began his research by looking for real-life examples of sports center signage, often visually awkward. He found a fittingly ironic case in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, where the name was clumsily set in a 1974 typeface – New Zelek by renowned Polish designer Bronisław Zelek. It perfectly captured the sharp, gritty aesthetic he was after.

New Zelek has been digitized and extended in 2013 by Polish type design studio Threedotstype. Marcel used this typeface for the album title on the cover and LL Unica77 by Lineto for the tracklist and small text.

[More info on Discogs]

Design of the album booklet

Back of the album cover featuring the tracklist

Possible vinyl cover (unrealized)

Possible vinyl cover (unrealized)

Лель (Lell, sometimes also transcribed as Lel) was a Soviet brand of musical instruments including analog synthesizers. Its logo is based on Bronisław Zelek’s New Zelek, with widened proportions.

The devices were manufactured at the Lyubertsy musical instrument factory in the Moscow region of the USSR.

The series included the UDS, an electronic drum kit with a synthesizing unit and two drum pads (with a rubber surface) on a stand; the PSR, a digital drum machine; the RC, a digital multi-effects processor; the SM, an electronic percussion instrument; and the DD, a drive distortion pedal.

The labels for the keys and controls use a Cyrillic typeface (or lettering) that appears to be related to Bank Gothic.

The DR-9 uses a logo in letters that resemble the Ustav script used for Church Slavonic (compare Blagovest). Other fonts include bold italic caps from Helvetica and Brush Script.

The AOS-100, made by Best Elektronik A.Ş., is a school bell timer/clock made for use in PA-integrated school bells that are used in Turkish public and private schools. It has 23 preset monophonic melodies, with additional functions such as playing the Turkish national anthem (İstiklal Marşı) and bells manually, automatic bell, announcement, holiday setting with one key, holiday mode, announcements, weekly lesson programs, automatic holiday days and a monochrome LCD display.

The device used Donald Handel’s Handel Gothic for information text. The Best logo is based on Othmar Motter’s Motter Tektura.

Variant with MP3 player and USB support

Italian poster (39.25″×55″) for Nucleo Internazionale’s 1977 release of The Devil’s Rain, a 1975 supernatural horror film directed by Robert Fuest, starring William Shatner, Tom Skerritt, Ernest Borgnine, Eddie Albert, Ida Lupino, and Keenan Wynn. John Travolta made his film debut in a minor role.

The title is shown in yellow letters from Bronisław Zelek’s New Zelek (Mecanorma, 1974). Other text appears to be set in Akzidenz-Grotesk extra, with the alternate R. The cover art is signed by “JAERMANN”.

McDonald's is known for having its marketers adapt the menu and advertising campaigns to local realities in every country. In Ukraine, they were no exception and conducted the Ukrainian Burger Season, designing promotional materials in an authentic style while avoiding clichés like embroidered shirts and flowers. To create banners and social media materials, they chose the yellow and blue colors of the Ukrainian flag and the beautiful Rutenia from the Shchedryk Foundation.

Teahouse is a Ukrainian company deeply passionate about tea. Development, curiosity, openness and beauty are the paths they tread. Operating in Ukraine since 2006, Teahouse directly sources tea from plantations and personally knows farmers from all around the world. They procure aromatic herbs and fruits from local Ukrainian farmers, and operate their own tea production facility where they package and beautifully present tea, creating blends.

Two Ukrainian fonts are used in the logo and packaging design: UkrSans by Shchedryk: font help (Щедрик: шрифтова поміч) and Jheronimus by Aronetiv. Also in some packaging designs there is PT Serif from Paratype and Arsenal from AndrijType.

Arrows from Di grotesk, Maria, Janus, New Zelek, Tor grotesk and Heneczek were used in the Les Grandes Vignes labelling system.

The Vaillant family, proprietors of Les Grandes Vignes, have been using organic and biodynamic approaches to wine-making since the 17th century. To reflect this avant-garde vigneron spirit, Gunter Piekarski designed a fresh new series of labels for their unique portfolio of wines.

Project description by the design studio:

By mapping the vast terroir surrounding the chai, we created a grid and used this to plot five distinctive typographic arrows borrowed from our friends at threedotstype.com. Each of the arrows points in its own direction, representing how the vineyards are spread across the estate landscape. They are colour-coded, too: green for white, blue for sparkling and red, of course, for red. Despite being idiosyncratic, the arrows form part of a system of signs that signify the collective spirit of the project.

The Maśniaki ensemble was established in 1967 at the General Board of the Podhale Association as “the Podhale People's Theater”, later operating as the “Maśniaki Song and Dance Ensemble”.

This eponymous album was recorded in 1978, and released by Polskie Nagrania Muza. The artwork by Jan Żabko-Potapowicz features the group’s name in New Zelek. The subtitle, in Polish (“Zespół z Zakopanego”) and English (“Folk group from Zakopane”) is set in Univers. The geometric sans on the back cover is Super-Grotesk (Schriftguss, 1930), a Futura follower that was produced by East German foundry Typoart.

[More info on Discogs]

Stawka większa niż życie (English: “Stakes Larger Than Life”) is a Polish novel written by Andrzej Zbych (literary pseudonym of Andrzej Szypulski and Zbigniew Safjan), based on the script for a televison play (1965–1967) and a TV series of the same title (1967–1968).

The plot is set during World War II. The main character is Stanislaw Moczulski, a Pole from Koscierzyna, Pomerania, who, because of his deluded resemblance to the German Hans Kloss, was recruited for cooperation by Soviet intelligence (the officer in charge was Colonel Jakubowski, who had Polish roots). Throughout the rest of the war, Moczulski, as an Abwehr officer, gained valuable information for the Soviets as agent J-23 for the People's Guard and People’s Army intelligence under the pseudonym “Janek.” In the Polish People’s Army, he reaches the rank of major, while as Kloss he attains the rank of hauptmann and receives the Iron Cross.

First published in 1969, this is the third edition published by Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, the publishing house of the Polish Ministry of National Defense, in 1989, in three volumes: Drugie Narodziny, Kurierka z Londynu, and Spotkanie na zamku. The covers and title page were designed by Waldemar Żaczek, using New Zelek and what looks like a bold phototype version of Times.

On the title page, the ogonek and the kropka (dot accent) are implemented as negative marks.

The Relaks holiday resort is located on Wyspa Sobieszewska, an island at the Baltic coast in northern Poland, just east of Gdańsk. It has a unique atmosphere – when I got there it felt as if I had moved back in time. The signs with the names of the houses might date back to the 1980s. They are made of some kind of sheet metal and are written in New Zelek (1974). The names themselves are charming: “Puchatek” is the Polish name of Winnie-the-Pooh, and “Muszelka” means “seashell”.

In 2022, the place inspired me to make photo shoot using a scarf designed by Threedotstype for the Pan tu nie stał brand. It combines the old with the new and shows how long New Zelek has been used – and that it doesn’t lose its relevance and appeal.

Front cover

This recording of symphonies by Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959), Czech composer of modern classical music, was performed by the Česká filharmonie under the direction of chief conductor Václav Neumann (1920–1995) and issued by Czechoslovak record company Supraphon in 1980. The box set with four LPs was made for export, as suggested by the English (and Russian) text.

Cover designer Miroslav Jiránek combined two typefaces from the catalog of Mecanorma, the French manufacturer of dry transfer lettering: Martinů’s name is shown in New Zelek, with a hyper-extended diagonal in M and a custom added kroužek, or ring, on the U. Subsequent text is shown in caps from Quirinale, with “Symphonies” enclosed in a cartouche. The box was printed at Severografia Děčín.

Born in 1951, Jiránek studied graphic design at Prague’s Academy of Arts (today also known as UMPRUM). After graduating in 1979, he worked in the field of design for about ten years, before devoting himself to painting. He’s the younger brother of cartoonist Vladimír Jiránek (1938–2012) [Galerie La Femme].

[More info on Discogs]

Box interior with booklet and records

Back cover. The track list and credits are in Univers.

In the enchanted land of letters is an upcoming book about Bronisław Zelek (1935–2018), Polish poster designer, type designer and painter.

Zelek was a brilliant artist, loved typography and operated it masterfully in his designs. He confessed that “the letter has haunted me all my life” – type is present in most of his works. Typography fascinates me as well, it “attacks” me literally everywhere, including when looking at Zelek’s letterforms. The project hence was born out of our shared passion – the love for letters.

Bronisław Zelek is mainly known as a representative of the Polish School of Posters. He designed more than a hundred of them! In the 1970s, he started designing typefaces, the most popular being New Zelek, which has been used in many projects in Poland and around the world for almost 50 years, for example in Microsoft’s 1980 logo. The last field where Zelek realized himself was painting, creating abstract pictures with his own original approach.

What will you find in the book?
– the story of Bronislaw Zelek
– extensive photo material
– Zelek’s previously unpublished poem “Scent of the taiga”
– historical background
– an essay by Zelek’s girlfriend, Hertha Grimm

For the book, I used three typefaces:
– New Zelek Pro by Threedotstype, which is a digitization of the original New Zelek from 1973
– Sztos by Mateusz Machalski, which is a digital and individually interpreted version of Baccarat from 1922
– Alegreya by Juan Pablo del Peral

The book will have 256 pages and bilingual text in Polish and English. It’s currently available for preorder. If you want to support the project and secure a copy, head over to Kickstarter.com. But don’t wait for too long: the crowdfunding campaign will end on March 31, 2023.

Mecanorma brochures with all five type styles designed by Zelek and produced by the French manufacturer of dry transfer lettering: New Zelek, Zelek Boldline, Zelek Bold, Zelek Shadline, and Zelek Black

Italian movie poster

From IMDb user Michael Elliott:

Entertaining non-sense from director Ruggero Deodato is an Italian rip-off of the American film The Concorde Airport ’79 but this here is actually much, much better. The wild plot deals with a crazy businessman (Joseph Cotten) who plans to take down every Concorde plane that he can so that it keeps him in business.

As noted above, this movie pirates on a movie from the same year, with a similar name: The Concorde... Airport ’79, the last episode in the Airport sequel (Airport, Airport 1975, Airport ’77). To add more variation/confusion, the movie was released under various similar names in different countries: Opéracion Concorde, SOS Concorde, S.O.S. Concorde, Das Concorde Inferno, Concorde Affair etc.

[More info on IMDb]

French single cover for “Hauteng”, a song taken from Miriam “Mama Africa” Makeba’s twentieth record album A Promise (1974). Makeba’s name is set in New Zelek, released by Mecanorma in the same year as A Promise (this single cover was designed a year later, in 1975). The letter shapes consistently interlock, pausing for triangular gaps above the A and M. There was no need for the designer to make any effort here: they used the letter shapes ready-made as Zelek designed them. ITC Avant Garde Gothic was chosen for the track titles; the alternate right-leaning letterforms echo the design of Makeba’s name. Note that her first name here is spelled with Y, as it was often done in France.

[More info on Discogs]

French single sleeve for the Stevie Wonder song “As” from his 1976 album Songs in the Key of Life. Recorded in 1974, it was released in 1977 by Motown and distributed by Pathé Marconi Records.

New Zelek is used with appropriately tight spacing. The letter sequence “STEVIE” is especially well suited for showing New Zelek’s chamfered terminals and the “miter joints” they enable, just like in the typeface’s name. This cohesive feature doesn’t really extend to all combinations, as seen in “WONDER” and “AS”.

[More info on Discogs]

Thanks to yjon for suggesting this post!

US one sheet by New Line Cinema Corp., 1983

One sheet movie posters for the 1981 supernatural horror film The Evil Dead, written and directed by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell. The film serves as the first entry in the Evil Dead franchise. While the film premiered in Detroit on October 15, 1981, it wasn’t launched nationally before April 15, 1983.

On the US one sheet the film's title is based on New Zelek, albeit heavily modified. Review quote from Stephen King and credit block are set in Gill Sans. On the Spanish poster, seen below, the film’s title is based on Futura. On the last poster, referred to as the International one sheet, the title is set in ITC Serif Gothic, with the tagline and review quote in ITC Souvenir and credit block in Futura. Attribution for King’s quote here is set in Helvetica Black.

Movie Posters Gallery credits the US one sheet poster to Mark Elliott Skolsky.

Spanish one sheet poster, also from after New Line Cinema acquired the distribution rights, and likely following the design of the US poster shown above

International one sheet by New Line Cinema Corp., 1983

Payy – “Exit Code” cover ft. Mories

After four months of no releases, German rapper Payy is back with new singles using his current logo based on ITC Benguiat which you can find as well in earlier releases.

The first single “Exit Code” uses a spaced version of Mories to give this cover a classic look, which was as well used in the music video below.

For the second single “Stoned” released 16th of July a font called Cloudstorm was used, modified. It gives us the look and feel of a modern movie poster that could be either a 3D animation for kids or a Bollywood movie.

The third one, “Sonnenaufgang”, is using Mories in a small size and with tighter spacing above the logo, because of the massive presence of the more visual cover art approach, reminiscient of an old painting.

For the fourth cover, the mood is set for a more darker atmosphere as the title translates to “demons”. It’s more like a horror movie poster, having been inspired by the ones for Here Comes the Devil and a mood that reminds us of The Weeknd. The font in use is the classic ITC Serif Gothic Black.

Number five, “Steig ein”, makes use of 62 Dragz which resembles the perfect general gas station typeface and any other kind of sports related design.

“Zu weit weg” comes with the inspiration of action movie posters from the ’90s and early 2000s. Compacta fits right in to make the title more present.

On “4am” Payy takes us to the club with the futuristic look of the Eagle Strike typeface. The name of guest artist Ardian Bujupi is added in New Zelek.

The cover for “Eine Nacht mit Dir” is inspired by Futura Black as used for the beautiful black-and-white movie Malcolm & Marie, with the city lights effect from 2006 rap album Rotten Apple by Llody Banks.

Number 9 with the title “Schaufel mein Grab” goes back to the deep topics and covers the iconic photograph with a letterspaced setting of Mories.

Payy – “Stoned” ft. Cloudstorm

Payy – “Sonnenaufgang” ft. Mories

Payy – “Dämonen” ft. ITC Serif Gothic Black

Payy – “Steig ein” ft. 62 Dragz

Payy – “Zu weit weg” ft. Compacta

Payy ft. Ardian Bujupi – “4AM” ft. Eagle Strike and New Zelek

Payy – “Eine Nacht mit Dir” ft. Futura Black BT

Payy – “Schaufel mein Grab

Flyers for Jeremih’s concert at The Gothic Theatre, Denver, Colorado on November 2nd, 2011, with additional guest performances by Ali Pierre, Rockie, and Dre Lane. The flyers were designed by DJ Emir using New Zelek, A Bite, Century Gothic, and Porcelain.

The logo for Denver’s Best DJs was designed by DJ Emir of ExtremeFlyerDesigns.com utilizing the fonts New Zelek, Bank Gothic and Sloop Script.