After being inspired by the film Marty Supreme, I decided to add a few items of my own creation to the world this movie created. These would have been celebrity endorsed and promotional items existing after Marty’s rise to fame.

In 1988, Eckehart SchumacherGebler edited and designed the first edition of 26 Letters / Lettern / Lettres, an “Annual and Calendar of 26 Letters of the Roman Alphabet”, made as “an international cooperation of typedesigners and typemanufacturers, printers and typographers”.

168 pages will inform about typefaces we are using daily, often without noticing the richness of their forms. More than a calendar, this typographically interesting compendium will serve at the end of the year as a lasting reference book about letter forms, their designers, function and history.

According to Oak Knoll, the typographical compendium —

serves as a reference book about letter forms, their designers, function and history. Most illustrations were supplied by the contributors and the typeface designers. Sponsored by the German Printers Federation, the Bundesverband Druck. Each pair of facing pages feature a distinct letter form with discussion in French, German and English. Printed with a wide range of colors throughout. With contributions by John Lane.

Shown here is an excerpt from the spiral-bound annual, with the pages for March 13–26, highlighting Wilke, a (then) recent release by the Linotype AG.

The annual was typeset by Fotosatz Hoffmann, Messel, Germany (Linotronic 300, Phototype) and published by Typostudio SchumacherGebler, Munich.

A second edition of 26 Letters / Lettern / Lettres followed in 1992, edited by SchumacherGebler together with Colin Banks. The foreword mentioned that the 1989 edition was received with much acclaim:

Concept, layout and print quality have brought the publication a series of awards: The Most Beautiful Books of Germany, Frankfurt 1989; a silver medal from the International Book Art Exhibition, Leipzig 1989; Typography Germany 90; Creative Award for Print on Uncoated Paper and prize of the Premio Felice Feliciano, 1991.

Folder and specimen for the introduction of Wilke Antiqua for phototypesetting, published by Linotype around 1988. The brochure is set in the three weights of Wilke, in roman and italic styles, and also showing the originally available oldstyle numerals and small caps. Conceived by Martin Wilke, it contains various calligraphic works by the lettering artist and typeface designer who died in 1993. Typographical design, layout and production work by Ralf Rudorf of Sedley Place Design, Berlin branch, Germany.

Business card for a stock exchange based in Berlin, Germany. The only item realized (and printed) of a planned new identity, it was set in Wilke, roman with small caps – Wilke had just been published by Linotype for phototypesetting the year before. The digital version of the typeface misses the small caps.

Dzielny mały toster is the Polish dub of the 1987 Disney movie The Brave Little Toaster. Its plot is about the adventures of an anthropomorphic toaster and his appliance friends.

On this DVD packaging from 2008, “Toster” uses David Berlow’s Sand, with double contour, gradient fill and drop shadow. “Pełny dubbing aktorski” uses a bold wide version of Helvetica. “Dzielny mały” probably started out with Helvetica, too. The explanation of the movie on the back is set in Helvetica Condensed Bold. “Dzielna piątka” features Palette with straight quote marks.

A classic British novel, first published in 1920, and set in the industrial English Midlands, Women in Love was written by D.H. Lawrence. This is a post-war American edition published as part of the “Modern Library” series of titles issued by Random House. The striking and simple cover is by noted artist and graphic designer Edward McKnight Kauffer. McKnight Kauffer was back and working in his native United States but much of his working life during the inter-war years was spent in the UK where he worked for a range of major clients, most notably London Transport.

Poland. Key to Europe, featuring Peignot gras dramatically staged with shadow effect and a sloping baseline

Two books written by Raymond Leslie Buell and published by Alfred A. Knopf, both with Peignot used for the title.

Buell (1896–1946) was an American social scientist who at the time served as president of the Foreign Policy Association. In Poland. Key to Europe, he points out the importance of Poland maintaining its independence and thus saving Europe “from the domination of either Fascism or Communism”. It was published in April 1939 – a few months before Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and soon after attacked Poland. Isolated America followed in May 1940, when German troops invaded France and the Low Countries. In this book, Buell expressed his stance against U.S. isolationism. One and a half years later, the United States abandoned its neutrality and entered World War II following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.

Peignot was pretty new in 1939. A.M. Cassandre’s groundbreaking design with the novel mix of capital and minuscule forms was first released by Deberny & Peignot in 1937. The bold weight, Peignot gras, followed in 1938. On the jacket for the first book, it’s paired with Egmont and Ariston. “Key to Europe” is handlettering. It appears to mimick Ariston (see the spine panel) – or is it the other way around? The text on the inner flap is set in Monotype Bodoni.

The bold geometric sans on the second book jacket is Vogue, used with some of its alternate glyphs. The author’s name is lettered, again not too far removed from Ariston.

Second edition jacket of Isolated America with a blurb by William Allen White

Yellow Brush Script for the neon sign of Salon am Riedhof, a hairdresser’s on Mörfelder Landstraße 235 in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen, documented by Monsieur Adrien in April 2023.

The services listed on the shop window also use Brush Script. There, the name is in the similar Palette, though.

Label from 1927

The labels used by Italian violinmaker Ernesto Pevere from around 1924 to 1930 is set in Poppelbaum’s Block. Local type foundries Fondografica and Reggiani had this design as Bologna and Nerone, respectively. This is perhaps the first label design he ever used. He made a modification to the word “Liutista” (“luthist”) on certain labels from 1928, altering it to “Liutaio” (“luthier”) by hand.

In 1930, he introduced a new label. While it’s possible that other designs exist, the one depicted here is quite small and incorporates two unidentified sans-serif typefaces. Breite halbfette Grotesk might be the less wide one.

A new label appeared in 1940, The new label used four typefaces, and stated with whom he apprenticed. The maker’s name is in Ariston, with Narciso Chiara Larga (Nebiolo’s version of Edel-Grotesk / Aurora-Grotesk VI–VII) below it. The name of the maker’s teacher, Ettore Soffritti, is in Copperplate Gothic, and the last line in Semplicità.

The latest label design I can find uses a typeface similar to Centaur for the maker’s name – possibly Inkunabula – and an unidentified bold italic typeface for the place and year in which the instrument was made.

Ernesto Pevere was born in 1891 and established as a luthier in Ferrera, where he was a pupil and assistant of Ettore Soffritti. After Soffritti’s death in 1928, Pevere continued working in a virtually indistinguishable style, sometimes using Soffritti’s name on the label. He worked with great energy, producing many instruments in a range of quality and finish, using classical models and a rich orange to red coloured varnish. At his death in 1963 he is reputed to have made 400 violins, 10 violas and 20 cellos. [Ingles & Hayday]

Label from 1928

Label from 1928

Label from 1929

Label from 1931

Label from 1941

Label from 1943

Shop front of G. Klose’s bakery in Königslutter, Germany, spotted by Monsieur Adrien in August 2023.

The letterforms are patterned after Diskus, a pen script by Martin Wilke that was first cast by Stempel in the late 1930s, in two weights. The sign is based on the bolder one, with increased x-height. There are two digitizations of Diskus Bold, by URW and by Linotype. We can tell that neither was referenced for the making of this sign: the G uses the alternate form (with trimmed descender) – which isn’t included in either of the digital fonts.

When Jürgen Klose retired in 2018, the family business closed for good.

US one sheet poster

Movie posters for the 1976 supernatural horror film Carrie, directed by Brian De Palma and starring Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie and John Travolta. The film is based on the bestselling 1974 debut novel of the same name by Stephen King.

The film's title on the US posters is set in Wilke Halftone, a design by Martin Wilke for Photo-Lettering, Inc., and further distorted using an optical effect, perhaps a dip-arch combined with a tapered perspective. Such optical effects were offered by many type suppliers of the era, including Photo-Lettering. This unique titling was also used in the film's theatrical trailer and also on the Italian and Turkish posters, minus quotation marks. The tagline is set in ITC Korinna and the credit block is set in Venus Condensed.

For the 1977 French poster, the film's title is set in ITC Souvenir with a credit block set in Univers. For the 1977 Italian poster, the film's title is tightly set in ITC Grouch with a credit block set in Akzidenz-Grotesk. For the 1981 Turkish poster, the film's title is set in Folio. Tagline appears to be set in Times New Roman and the credit block is set in a condensed News Gothic. Additional Turkish text looks to be set in Helvetica or similar.

Designer/s unknown. Artwork on French poster by Jouineau Bourduge. Illustration on Italian poster by Averardo Ciriello. Illustration on Turkish poster appears to be copied from the cover of a film tie-in paperback published by New English Library.

Sample of Wilke Halftone compared with the film's title from the poster

US half sheet poster

French grande poster (1977). Artwork by Jouineau Bourduge.

Italian poster (1977). Illustration by Averardo Ciriello.

Turkish poster (1981)

Official reissue of a magical Balearic Dub LP from Ambient Warrior originally released in 1995 on Brixton's Lion Inc label.

The album Dub Journey’s is rooted in Dub but has a much broader scope taking in various musical influences from across the globe thanks to the partnership between Reggae veteran Ronnie Lion and Basement Jaxx collaborator Andreas Terrano, a highly talented pianist and guitarist. The result is an authentic and unique LP that touches upon Balearica, Bossa Nova and Tango styles set to a Dub Reggae backdrop.

While Ambient Warrior is set in caps from Wedge Gothic, the album’s title uses New Berolina.

The back cover font is a distressed Helvetica.

Picture postcard from “Berlin’s beautiful south” from 1967, with sights in Britz, Buckow, and Rudow, three localities in the borough of Neukölln, (then West) Berlin. Both typefaces originated at the Berthold type foundry in Berlin-Kreuzberg in the 1930s: Caprice (1938) was designed by Martin Wilke, Post-Antiqua (1932) is by Herbert Post. The small captions are hand-lettered.

Bordering on LTypI: Zipper (1970) for Schipper. Letraset’s display face with horizontal contrast is paired with Slogan (1958) for the shop front of a hairdresser’s in Bad Kissingen, Germany, promising “Moderne Haarpflege für die Dame und den Herrn” (“modern hair care for men and women”). The shop was established in 1968. Spotted by Monsieur Adrien in September 2020.

An older image shows that the awning used to be orange, and that there was another sign on the fascia, in Palette (1950).

“Old Fashioned” (No. 166) features two Western-style typefaces that probably originated at Filmotype in the 1960s. They’re both shown in an undated c.1974 Filmomaster specimen, as Van Horn and Quincy. The latter is also known as Amanda.

Covers for various clip books of line art issued in 1968 by Harry Volk Jr. Art Studio, Pleasantville, New Jersey. See the previous post about the clip books issued in 1955 for more information on Harry Volk Jr. Art Studio.

The bottom lines use Alternate Gothic Compressed and Univers.

“Holidays” (No. 167) ft. Gonzales Jeanette with a custom star dot that echoes the fuse.

“Expressions” (No. 168) ft. Reklame. This old German typeface was adopted by Photo-Lettering and shown in their 1971 catalog as Reclame. The punctuation is from Pistilli Roman, see the comments.

“Strength” (No. 170) ft. West Behemoth with tight and overlapping spacing and the monocular g.

“Telephones” (No. 171) ft. Filmotype Gamma.

“Religion” (No. 172) ft. Baker Chalone.

“Entertainment” (No. 174) ft. Norton Vaudeville.

“Contests” (No. 175) ft. Eurostile Bold Extended.

“Atmosphere” (No. 480) ft. Playbill.

“Direct Mail” (No. 481) ft. Univers, Venus Extended, and Franklin Gothic Wide.

“America” (No. 482) ft. Egyptienne Bold Condensed.

“Summer” (No. 483) ft. Chwast Art Tone on an angle.

“Marine” (No. 484) ft. Kalligraphia.

“Western” (No. 485) ft. Bookman Swash Bold Italic

“Autumn” (No. 486) ft. Staudel Xenotype J.

“Science” (No. 487) ft. Britannic.

“Fall & Winter Sports” (No. 488). This narrow grotesk looks a lot like an outlined version of Schmalfette Grotesk, or maybe PLINC’s adaptation Swiss Gothic, but it seems the ampersand doesn’t match. Any insights are welcome. The same outlined style appears on Volk covers from 1964 and 1974, while the “Law & Order” booklet from 1966 uses the similar Permanent Headline.

“Transportation” (No. 489) ft. Permanent Headline.

“Christmas” (No. 490) ft. Inserat-Grotesk.

“Couples” (No. 492) ft. Whimzitype 3600. Illustration by Tom Sawyer.

“Groups” (No. 494) ft. Futura Light.

“Insurance” (No. 495) ft. Permanent Massiv. The small text on this cover is set in Helvetica.

“Occupations” (No. 497) likewise shows light caps from Futura. Illustration by Tom Sawyer.

“Women” (No. 499) ft. Smoke in all caps.

“Money” (No. 500) ft. more Futura Light.

“Spring & Summer Sports” (number unknown), ft. Eurostile.

“Register and Vote” from the Paste Pot & Scissors subseries (No. PP 105), ft. Pacella Monitor and Franklin Gothic. The small type at the bottom is in Eurostile.

“Announcers” from the Paste Pot & Scissors subseries (No. PP 107), ft. Photo-Lettering’s West Behemoth Italic Swash with swash alternates and overlapping glyphs.

“Luck” from the Paste Pot & Scissors subseries (No. PP 108), ft. Mansard (with contour), another face available from Photo-Lettering. It might also be Jim Dandy, a contoured variant of Slim Dandy by Lettergraphics.

“The Year” (No. PP109) ft. more all-caps Smoke, here with its peculiar Y.

“Clichés” (No. PP110) ft. Palette on an angle as well as an early use of PLINC’s Ballard.

“Borders” (No. PP115) ft. Clarendon caps.

Taken in November 2019.

These pictures show the abandoned Luwal shoe factory, Luckenwalde, Brandenburg, in what used to be the GDR. The script typeface used for the sign on the roof is Ariston, designed by Martin Wilke and first cast by the Berthold foundry in nearby Berlin in 1932. The version used here is from a later era when letterforms could be stretched and cut from vinyl.

According to André Winternitz (rottenplaces.de), the factory was originally built by the Niendorf brothers for manufacturing pianos. In 1921, it became “Schuhfabrik Dulberg AG”. This name changed in 1924 to “Schuhfabrik Luwal AG”. The products were marketed as “Geier – der Markenschuh” [Perladesa]. In GDR times, the company operated under the name “VEB Luckenwalder Schuhfabrik (Luwal)”. See more images on rottenplaces.de.

Taken in April 2019.

Sign at Munich’s Marienplatz, at the former location of the inn “Zum Ewigen Licht”, which is said to have been the birthplace of the famous Munich Weißwurst in 1857.

Most of these neon letters are based on Impuls by Paul Zimmermann (Ludwig Wagner, 1954). The A and M, however, seem to be modeled after another German brush script, Martin Wilke’s Palette (H. Berthold AG, 1951, aka Brush 445). Apparently these glyphs were considered inappropriate in Impuls – the M has the enlarged minuscule form, which is not as common anymore as it used to be.

Top: Brush 445, Bitstream’s digital version of Palette.
Middle: Impuls BT, featuring the A and M that were replaced for the sign.
Bottom: Impuls Pro (RMU, 2010), with activated alternates for A and M, as well as a tz ligature. These forms were included in the original metal font, too, but are missing from Impuls BT.

This sign at the entrance is set entirely in Palette.

Postcard from Zell am See, Salzburg, Austria, featuring:

• BMW Neue Klasse
• Mercedes-Benz W114/115 “Strich Acht”
• Opel Ascona A
• Renault 4L “Quatrelle”
• VW Beetle/Käfer

The pen script is Caprice, designed by Martin Wilke and first issued by Berthold in 1938. Pension Müllauer is still around.

From Familiar:

Kunsthall Stavanger is a non-collecting art institution based in Stavanger, Norway. Founded in 2012, the Kunsthall occupies a beautiful 90 year old building space formerly occupied by a local art society. Prior to the renovation of the exhibition space, founder and chief curator Hanne Mugaas approached Familiar to create a website and visual identity that could grow with the evolving institution.

Source: www.johnsonbanks.co.uk License: All Rights Reserved.

Torbay is a borough in Devon, England, […] spanning the towns of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham, located around an east-facing natural harbour (Tor Bay) on the English Channel. A popular tourist destination with a tight conurbation of resort towns, Torbay’s sandy beaches, mild climate and recreational and leisure attractions have given rise to the nickname of the English Riviera. — Wikipedia

In 1982, British graphic designer John Gorham (1937–2001) was commissioned to devise a poster for the English Riviera. His solution presents a detail of the scenery in a carefully defined color palette, echoing the style of travel posters made in the second quarter of the 20th century. The composition here is boiled down to the absolute essence: a sandy stripe for the beach, separated by a thin white line of spume from a turquoise rectangle for the sea, underneath a gradient from white to deep blue for the sky — Rothko meets Albers. In the foreground: The silhouette of a stylized Torbay palm tree. Not only is it perfectly centered, its crown is drawn with symmetrical leaves — this is the English Riviera. The type is Gill Sans (what else?) set in three stacked and justified lines of caps from the Light weight (first issued in 1931), with the names of the three towns joined by middle dots. Johnson Banks’ blog post about John Gorham suggests that this work of his became quite influential:

His poster for the English Riviera unfortunately encouraged a whole generation of designers to pretend that they actually were 1930s poster artists.

For those interested in Gorham and his work, see also Mike Dempsey’s article about his “local hero”.

Gorham’s iconic poster spawned many variations and follow-ups. These were designed by David Hughes and others. Most of them maintained the combination of Gorham’s symmetrical palm tree and light Gill Sans. The website of the English Riviera Tourist Board used to have a dedicated page with a full list of the annual posters, from 1983 to 2004. Unfortunately the images are gone, but bloggers designatweeta and Torquay Palms reposted some of them. A selection is reproduced below.

Source: www.anatomised.com Anatomised. License: All Rights Reserved.

Pool, 1986. “One of several posters designed by David Hughes in this long-running campaign for The English Riviera.” — Anatomised

Source: designatweeta.wordpress.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Beach huts, 1988

Source: designatweeta.wordpress.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Teacup, 1990

Source: www.pinterest.de License: All Rights Reserved.

English Rose, 1991

Source: designatweeta.wordpress.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Snorkel, 1997

Source: designatweeta.wordpress.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Spring Breaks, 1992. From a series of seasonal ads featuring Bernhard Modern Bold Italic (ATF, 1938).

Source: designatweeta.wordpress.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Autumn Breaks, 1992

Source: designatweeta.wordpress.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Christmas Breaks, 1992

Source: designatweeta.wordpress.com License: All Rights Reserved.

English Spoken Here, 1993. The script is Ariston extrafett (Berthold, 1936).

Source: www.flickr.com Torquay Palms. License: CC BY-SA.

Little Differences, 1994

Source: designatweeta.wordpress.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Diving Board, 1995

Source: www.flickr.com License: CC BY-SA.

Camel, 1999. From a series of ads that showed John Gorham’s original poster in other places, from Egypt to Australia and Mars.

Source: www.flickr.com License: CC BY-SA.

Uluru, 2004

Source: www.englishrivierabid.co.uk License: All Rights Reserved.

The current version (2018) features a weaker, asymmetric palm tree (or is fireworks?) in red and blue. The type is still in Gill Sans caps, but now in two weights, paired with Arial Rounded Bold, set on a wave.

Source: www.flickr.com Jainbow. License: All Rights Reserved.

A variation of the original palm tree poster, spotted in 2012 outside Torquay Station.