Patience is the second album by Haitian compas band Les Gypsies de Pétion-Ville. Released in 1973 by Macaya Records, a Haitian label founded by Patrick Anson, it came complete with a free single.

While the animated Latin in alternating colors on the front cover is lettering and not a font, the back features a typeface from VGC: the open and shaded Tavern was designed by Stan Biggenden, better known for his MICR-style design Orbit-B. According to a note in The Publishers Weekly, Tavern was drawn in five widths. As far as I can tell, VGC released only a single weight, sometime between their 1972 and 1973 catalogs.

Photography by Dominique F. Simon. The wide red caps are from Microgramma. The Macaya logo uses ITC Busorama.

[More info on Discogs]

From Wikipedia:

The Running Man is a 1987 American dystopian action film directed by Paul Michael Glaser and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, María Conchita Alonso, Richard Dawson, Yaphet Kotto, and Jesse Ventura.

The film’s story about a television show where convicted criminal “runners” must escape death at the hands of professional killers is very loosely based on the 1982 novel of the same name written by Stephen King and published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman

The opening titles and introductory text are typeset in Bessellen (VGC, 1973), which previously appeared in The Terminator. The main title and Schwarzenegger credit is typeset in Steve (Letraset, 1983), in an oblique style with white outline.

Various video displays feature what looks to be Eurostile. The titling for “Climbing for Dollar$” is set in Cooper Black. What looks to be Orbit-B, with some slight modifications, is used for the “Killian is Lying to You” text, and Data 70 appears on various props throughout the film. The end titles are set in Helvetica.

This 1985 poster for the movie Future-Kill has a logo set in Orbit-B. The K was modified by the designer, probably to better distinguish it from H. Movie credits are set in Futura.

The 1980s were an era of excellent hand-drawn movie posters, and this design is no exception. The poster art was drawn by renowned artist H.R. Giger, an artist famous for creating the xenomorph, the alien species that oozes at the center of the Alien film franchise. His other-worldly artistic style is once again on display on this striking movie poster.

Unfortunately, this artwork is wasted on a terrible, poorly reviewed film. From Wikipedia:

Future-Kill (released in the UK as Night of the Alien) is a 1985 comedy science fiction-horror film about a group of fraternity boys who are hunted by mutants in a futuristic city. The film was directed by Ronald W. Moore, and stars Edwin Neal, Marilyn Burns and Gabriel Folse.

[More info on IMDb]

Source: www.flickr.com Photo by Windell Oskay of Evil Mad Scientist. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.flickr.com Photo by Windell Oskay of Evil Mad Scientist. License: All Rights Reserved.

Blip was a portable Pong-style game made in 1977, the year handheld video games were just catching on. Although it was branded “The Digital Game”, the action was purely mechanical, powered by a wind-up timer. According to the Handheld Games Museum, “The batteries are only there to light up the single red LED light that represents the ball. (You can actually play the game with no batteries in a bright enough setting).”

But that didn’t hold Tomy back from playing up the “digital” aspect. The late 1970s were all about video games, so the company did their best to hide Blip’s true analog nature, branding the product so it looked and felt high-tech and electronic. The name itself is an obvious reference to the sound a computer might make, and they pounded that into the heads of consumers in this television spot.

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

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

Besides the name, type played a major part in Tomy’s futuristic aims: what could be more computerized than Computer? The typeface was used for “The Digital Game” on the box, and the Blip logo was likely derived from Computer as well, but it needed some creative modification as the font had no lowercase. A cap ‘L’ works fine for the lowercase ‘l’, and a squashed cap ‘P’ can fake a minuscule if it descends below the baseline. Meanwhile, the logo on the unit itself appears to be set in Orbit-B, a design similar to Computer, but lighter and more square, with larger counters.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Japanese and German editions of Blip, courtesy sellers swow and Los Reyes Magos.

The Japanese version (left) was labeled “World Tennis”, set in Data 70, another simplified take on the MICR aesthetic. The same font was also used on the packaging for the German “Blip-o-mat” (right).

If you add it all up, this odd little game managed to utilize all three of the MICR-style fonts that were frequently found in futuristic films, entertainment, and other products throughout the 1970s and ’80s. Read more about the relationship between this type genre and video gaming in an extensive article by Zach Whalen.