The Muppet Show Book was published in 1978 by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. The book adapts material from the first two seasons of The Muppet Show, with illustrations by Tudor Banus.

The main text font used throughout the book is ITC Souvenir. The characters’ names and initials are each set in a unique font, see the image captions for details. A few minor characters’ names are in ITC Souvenir.

“Introduction” is in the roman style of Bookman Swash. The character-specific fonts are Art Gothic for Kermit the Frog; Sweetheart for Miss Piggy; Yagi Link Double for Sgt. Floyd Pepper; Benguiat Laurent (with Psychemat effect) for Dr. Teeth [edit: rather Bullseye, a copy of PLINC Capricorn, see comments]; ITC Neon for Zoot; Crayonette for Janice; and Shatter for Animal.

Second page of the introduction, ft. Interline for Statler & Waldorf (without the pattern fill in Statler’s case); Scorpio/Hoopla for Fozzie Bear; and Burst Caps for Crazy Harry. The sound effects (“BANG”, “HA HA HA …”) are in caps from Caslon No. 471/540 or similar.

ITC Bookman Demi with swash caps

“THE NEW GO-FER” is in Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed.

An outline version of Cooper Black is used for Scooter and Hobo for George the Janitor.

Reward poster for Kid Fozzie, ft. Figaro

The typeface chosen for Rowlf is Reklameschrift Secession.

Moore Computer features for Kermit’s robot doppelgänger.

“GONZO THE GREAT” uses more of the aforementioned Caslon caps. The character font is Lydia.

Sam the Eagle is presented in a chromatic setting of Stripes Caps.

Cloud Bank for Dr. Julius Strangepork and Countdown for Captain Link Hogthrob

The initial I is from Thunderbird.

The initial S is unidentified.

Microgramma Condensed is used for Nigel

The formal script used for “The Lives and Loves of Gonzo the Great” is Typo Script Extended.

Round Rosie is the font used for Vincent Price’s initials … 

… and Smoke is the one chosen for Uncle Deadly.

Dr. Bunsen Honeydew is set in Gemini.

Filmotype Pixie was spec’d for Hilda.

Another Bookman Swash

Manuscript Capitals for “Bein’ Green”

The P from Mira identifies Koozebanian Phoob.

Chianti is used for Robin.

Kermit the Pig is in an unidentified font similar to Rubens and Duerer.

Playbill is used for J.P. Grosse. On this page, the o’s in Scooter’s name are altered to look like his glasses.

Live! At Caesar’s Palace is the debut album by the Checkmates Ltd. It was released on Capitol Records in 1967. The cover shows the band name in purple Smoke, featuring a custom drawn castellated T that alludes to a rook piece.

Wikipedia has the following information about the band:

The Checkmates, Ltd. were an American R&B group from Fort Wayne, Indiana. The group, discovered by Nancy Wilson, was named such because the group included both black and white members, and their various skin tones evoked a chessboard; their one major hit was 1969’s “Black Pearl”, produced by Phil Spector.

The album title is in pink and red caps from Helvetica Black.

[More info on Discogs]

The teardrop-shaped letterforms of Smoke, appropriately suggesting an oozing substance, act as a subtle counterpoint to a graphic tightly-cropped close-up of Rick Baker’s gruesome make-up effects on this Super 8 film box art for The Incredible Melting Man.

Though dating back to the 1890s, the moment of glory for Smoke was the psychedelic era. The Doors’ Waiting for the Sun features one example. With its trippy associations, Smoke is perhaps not the obvious choice for a horror movie, introducing a slightly incongruous note into this striking design.

A cut-down ‘digest’ version of the AIP film, this Super 8 reel was released by Mountain/Ken Films in the late 1970s. Operating from an office on Wardour Street, they were one of the major operators in the home cinema market, prior to the advent of home video. Remarkably, via a deal with 20th Century Fox, they were able to release a version of Star Wars in the UK prior to the cinema premiere.

Read more in a 2024 article by Ged Jones on Derann Vaults.

First compilation printing of R.L. Stine’s Halloween Night (1993) and Halloween Night (1994), published by Schloastic in 2003. The cover typography uses squeezed Crypt (a.k.a. PostCrypt) together with LTR NCND (then known as FF Trixie). Both typefaces were given a spooky glow effect. Tagline and back cover text are set in Futura Condensed.

Everyone at McKinley High dreams about Halloween. The A-plus parties, the creepy costumes—it's a blast. Everyone, that is, except Brenda Morgan. For Brenda, Halloween is a total nightmare.

Every year, something terrifying happens to her. Like someone smearing blood all over her bedroom wall. Or her friend stabbing her in the back—literally.

It's almost like Halloween night is cursed for Brenda. And unfortunately, October 31 is just around the corner....

A Child’s Garden of Grass started out as a handbook written by Jack S. Margolis and Richard Clorfene, first published by Contact Books in 1969. In 1971, it was adapted into A Child’s Garden of Grass (A Pre-Legalization Comedy), a long-playing record produced and directed by Ron Jacobs, along with Margolis.

Dave Davison’s Fandango is used for the title both on the album cover and on the paperback reissue of the handbook by Pocket Books, as well as for the promotional campaign. Fandango is similar to Davison Bolero, with noticeable differences – such as Fandango having additional ornaments in certain glyphs or double notches in letters such as O and D. Both Fandango and Bolero are modelled after Central’s Othello.

The album was art directed “in a joint effort” by Robert L. Heimall and William S. Harvey. John Balsley styled the photo. It features all kinds of topical items from marijuana plants, a hookah, tobacco crumbs, papers, and matchboxes to a Lady Justice scale, a package of Stoned Wheat Thins, pinback buttons, headphones, a can of air freshener with green leaves, and a Monopoly board.

[More info on Discogs]

There are some words at the top left of the back cover that use Smoke (“GRASS”), Flirt (“MARIJUANA”) and Karnac (“CANNABIS SATIVA”). Track list and credits are set in sober Helvetica.

Cover of the handbook as reissued by Pocket Books. The secondary typeface is (a phototype version of) Page No. 506.

Promotional poster by Elektra Records

A billboard on Sunset Strip, advertising the release of the album in 1971. Coincidentally, the Music Hall sign below uses a stylistically related typeface, Rubens.

Front and back of the gatefold LP

Undated poster (c.1970) with the weekly program of Teatar &TD. The logo is introduced with a fine manicule. Stencil is also used for the days of the week. Dates are in Schmale Herold, names of plays in Blippo and Helvetica, and times in Annlie Italic.

Ivo Brešan – Predstava Hamleta u selu mrduša donja, općine Blatuša, 1971. Brešan’s name is in a variant of Broadway, distinguished by closed counters in B, a straight leg in R, a centered middle bar in E, and more small adjustments. I assume this is Roaring Twenties, with modifications [edit: or rather Trio Serie A, see comments]. The title combines Handels-Cursief a.k.a. Elvira, Murillo, a hand-rendered (?) version of Bernhard-Antiqua extrafett (or Lo-Schrift?), and Schmale Herold.

Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz & Igor Stravinsky – Priča o vojniku (L’Histoire du soldat), 1971. The title is in Sea weed, with a custom-added flat diacritic. The names above use all-lowercase Helvetica and all-caps Century Expanded.

Luigi Pirandello – Henrik četvrti (Enrico IV, 1922), 1972. “ITD Galerija” is in Thorne Shaded, “Pirandello” in Smoke, “Henrik” in Sezession, and “četvrti” in Helvetica, again with a horizontal bar as caron.

Georg Büchner – Woyzeck (1836/1913), 1972, with overlayered Thorne Shaded and Torino Italic for “büchner”

Heiner Müller – Filoktet (Philoktet, 1965), 1972. The title uses Roaring Twenties, with giant EndcapS. The playwright’s name is in lowercase Torino Italic.

Peter Nichols – Jedan dan u smrti male Joe (A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, 1967), 1972. Helvetica and Bookman Swash Italic are used for the title and Century Expanded for “Nichols”.

Harold Pinter – Stara vremena (Old Times, 1971), 1973. The geometric hairline caps are from Walter; “Pinter” appears to be in Prismania Thirteen.

Zvonimir Majdak – Kužiš, stari moj starring Mladen Budišćak, 1973. Caps from Schmale Herold are paired with another Berthold release: “majdak” is set in Normande Condensed.

Eugène Ionesco – Lekcija (La Leçon, 1951) / Slobodan Šembera – Vrijeme za gastritis (1971), 1973, with titles in Jim Crow and Baby Arbuckle

Haiti Goes Latin is an album of Latin music recorded by Les Docteurs du Rythme in Haiti, and released by Ansonia Records in New York in 1975. The cover photograph depicts the Marché en Fer, or Iron Market, a public market in Haiti’s capital, Port‑au‑Prince. It’s by local artist Jacques Karaha, who might be responsible for the typography, too. At least he’s credited for other cover designs.

The names of the band and of arranger Michel Desgrottes are set in Smoke, while the album title is shown in the inline caps of Metropolis licht. The small print is in Univers.

In 2023, the reincarnation of Ansonia Records reissued some tracks from the album in digital form.

[More info on Discogs]

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by cardboardamerica@gmail.com Jordan Smith and tagged with “smoke” and “futura”. License: All Rights Reserved.

Branded matchbook for the Hurricane Motor Lodge in Marathon, Florida, produced Universal Match, Miami. The left-leaning Smoke is here used to symbolize the impact of extreme wind.

Secondary text is set in Futura and News Gothic. The tagline “In the Keys – On the Gulf” is custom script lettering.

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by cardboardamerica@gmail.com Jordan Smith and tagged with “smoke” and “futura”. License: All Rights Reserved.

French sleeve for Yoko Ono’s first single from her second studio album Fly, released in 1971 by Pathé Marconi Records under license from Apple Records.

Written and sung by Ono, the A-side was recorded with John Lennon on piano and organ and Klaus Voormann on acoustic guitar and bass.

From Wikipedia:

Ono biographers Nell Beram and Carolyn Boriss-Krimsky described the song’s theme as the way the public defined Ono solely as ex-Beatle John Lennon’s wife and did not recognize her as an artist in her own right. Beram and Boriss-Krimsky felt that the lack of promotion her records including Fly received was a reflection of this theme, since her record company did not believe that the public would be interested in Ono’s solo work Ben Urish and Ken Bielen described the song’s theme similarly, stating that it is an “ironic ballad” that it sounds like a love song, but the lyrics describe Ono’s anxiety about losing her identity.

Premier Lightline is a Letraset original, and the first typeface to be released in their Letragraphica range. Smoke and Churchward Marianna were available in France from Hollenstein at the time, see them listed in a 1971 catalog.

[More info on Discogs]

Hardcover dust jacket cover for Venus School-Mistress

Published in 1968 by Grove Press, this hardcover edition of the erotica book Venus School-Mistress features the typeface Smoke and a cover photo by Lee Kraft. There is no design credit. According to the back cover synopsis, "Venus School-Mistress is a collection of fiction, verses, drama, and philosophy on the theme of flagellation."

Venus School-Mistress was published under the imprint Zebra Books, one of their imprints known for publishing “pornographic classics”. You can read more on the history in an article by Loren Glass for the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Front cover of the paperback edition by Zebra Books

Back cover of the paperback edition by Zebra Books

According to Discogs, the Torero Band was a “British group of studio musicians, imitating the style of Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, […] led by Alan Moorhouse”.

Keith Davis designed the sleeve for this album with brass interpretations of Christmas carols, using a photograph by Keith Morris – and lots of Neptun. The record was released in 1968 on Music for Pleasure, located in Middlesex, England. Shown here is a pressing by their Australian branch.

[More info on Discogs]

Top Drawer was a psychedelic rock band from Mansfield, Ohio, that released one single album, Solid Oak. The album was recorded at Fultz Recording Studio in Louisville, Kentucky. The first song of the album, “Song Of A Sinner”, brought the band fame.

The cover, which does not mention a designer, show an almost faceless band framed by the band name set in Mania and the album title set in Flash. As one would expect with a band almost named upper case, all typography is set in capitals, with the addition of faux small caps for the album title.

The 2022 rerelase of the album by Guerssen Records is adorned with a banderole using artwork from the original back cover: a bare chested band portrait, a divining rod and the band name set in Smoke.

[More info on Discogs]

Fonts from the Flea Market #1309

This sleeve for a 1972 single by Italian-Swiss singer Rita Pavone (b. 1945) features two typefaces with roots in the 19th century. They were both available at the time from French phototype provider Hollenstein:

Italian Print was shown in 1877 in a book of alphabets compiled by Frederick S. Copley. Unlike the original Italians from the early 1800s, this variant is not fully inverse stressed, but rather purely horizontally stressed, and has an extra contour around the capitals.

Smoke is a 20th-century trade name for a backslanted bottom-heavy design with round bottom terminals that was first made in wood by William H. Page around 1856.

[More info on Discogs]

Front cover of Channel 1, released June 2000

Channel is a series of leftfield, electro and electroclash music compilation mixes released between 2000 to 2005. The channels range from one to four and feature a roster of British and international artists in a tracklist of 10 to 15 tracks, including Yello, LCD Soundsystem, Lopazz, and others.

Trevor Jackson, the founder of the now-defunct “highly acclaimed” Output Recordings (1996–2006), was known for designing the covers himself in the independent label’s art director role.

The first in this installment (released in June 2000) features a hot pink background (except fluorescent orange in the 2005 copies, not pictured) and text set in Berthold’s Akzidenz-Grotesk Bold, which was also used for the CD-R version (not pictured) released with Source UK, a tradename of the French label Source, but in a background of silver filled on the cover and the text being aligned on the centre above.

However, from Channel 2 to Channel 4, the band names on the front and track names on the back are a circus maelstrom of fonts with various backgrounds, including monochrome in two variants (one being white and black, the second being black on white) and metallic gold (pictured) and metallic silver (not pictured).

These fonts include classics from the metal type era as well as the 1970s/80s dry-transfer and phototypesetting years (including designs by ITC, Letraset, Mecanorma, VGC, Fotostar/Fascimile Fonts, and Photo-Lettering) in the styles of Art Deco, Victorian, Art Nouveau, geometric, etc. Note especially the early use of Tank by Canadian type designer Ray Larabie (in the 2004 compilation cover which by the way was possibly inspired by ITC Machine from 1970) and Boback from Nathan Williams’ Baseline Fonts foundry (not released until 2006) [edit: it’s probably the earlier Serifedsans].

Back cover, in left-aligned text and two columns

Channel Two, released April 2003: Centaur (Bruce Rogers, Monotype, 1928), Cooper Black (Oswald Bruce Cooper, Barnhart Brothers and Spindler, 1922), ITC Symbol (Aldo Novarese, 1984), Abbot Old Style (Joseph W. Phinney, ATF, 1901), Albertus (Berthold Wolpe, Monotype, 1936), Cottonwood (Barbara Lind et al., Adobe, 1989), Old English (Monotype, an adaptation of ATF Cloister Black, 1904), Memphis Bold (Rudolf Wolf, 1931), Studio (Dick Dooijes and Dolf Overbeek, Amsterdam Type Foundry, 1946), Too Much Shadow (Bill Seifert, VGC, 1974), Karnak Bold Condensed (Robert Hunter Middleton, Ludlow, 1931), Boback (Baseline Fonts, released ca. 2006, documented early use of an Alternate Gothic with serifs on the bottom) [edit: it’s probably the earlier Serifedsans], Helvetica Condensed (outlined, Stempel/Linotype), ITC Avant Garde Gothic (Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase, 1970) and Hamilton (Font Bureau, 1993).

Back cover

Channel 3, released in June 2004 (pictured behind is the pink cover): Agraphicus (VGC before 1982, digitized by WSI in 1996 as Arruba), Tank (Ray Larabie of Typodermic, 2004 – the year this album was released in), ITC Busorama (Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase, the creators of Avant Garde Gothic, 1970), Buxom (Bob Trogman of Fotostar/Fascimile, 1975), ITC Pioneer (Ronné Bonder, 1970), ITC Serif Gothic (Herb Lubalin and Tony Di Spigna, 1972), a condensed sans (probably a bolder style of FF Meta or similar), Shatter (Vic Carless, Letraset, 1973), Futura Black (Paul Renner, Bauer, 1929), Clarendon (Hermann Eidenbenz, Haas, 1953), Umbra (Robert H. Middleton, Ludlow, 1932), ITC American Typewriter Light (Tony Stan and Joel Kaden, 1974), and Raphael (Central Type Foundry, 1885)

Back cover with copyright and remix text in Helvetica (Max Miedinger, Haas, 1957)

Example spread of booklet that comes with the tracklist

Channel 4, released in September 2005: Fiorello (Photo-Lettering Inc., before 1965), Futura Light (Paul Renner, Bauer, 1927), Blackline (Wolf Magin, Berthold, 1973), Shotgun (J. Looney, VGC, 1972), ITC Busorama (see Channel 3 for info, here used with the asymmetrical A), ITC Zapf International (Hermann Zapf, 1977), Isabella (Herman Ihlenburg; MacKellar, Smiths and Jordan; 1892), Novel Gothic (shaded variant as seen in Solotype’s 3-D and Shaded Alphabets; Charles H. Becker and Morris F. Benton, ATF, 1928), Crypt, Sauce (unknown), University Roman (Letraset, 1972), Cooper Black (outlined variant) and ITC Serif Gothic Bold.

Back cover

Spine

4×4 is the title of a compilation of four erotic novellas, published by Grove Press in 1962. Each pair of title and author’s name is set in a different typeface, with alternating line colors. The chosen typefaces are Smoke for Stairway to the Sea by Thomas Firth Jones, Art Gothic for This Night in Sodom by Charles Jules Reiter, Grant No. 2 for Custom by John Schultz, and Italic Ornate for The Apostate Heriger by Anthony Shafton. All four designs have roots in the 19th century, and all were included in the Morgan Press Collection, a series of revivals of wood and foundry typefaces adopted for phototype by Headliners in the 1960s.

“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.

Utca & Karrier (“Street & Career”) is an independent, nonprofit magazine about culture, politics, and art made by young journalists and artists from Budapest, Hungary. It was created as a platform for the youth to stand against political oppression. It was founded by Mark Tremmel, Endre Cserna, Daniel Kiszler and Aron Lodi.

Get Smart is an American comedy television series that satirizes the secret agent genre that was popular in the United States in the late 1960s. The program was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. […] A series of novels based on characters and dialog of the series was written by William Johnston and published by Tempo Books in the late 1960s. — Wikipedia

This is the cover of the ninth novel in the Get Smart series, published in 1969.

For the brochure for a Polish short-film festival organized by McGraw-Hill, I used a different typeface to express the variety of genres that was represented. — Alan Peckolick, Teaching Type to Talk, 2013.

Environments was a long running series of field recordings meant for therapeutic effects. With sounds of the seashore or maybe a lush forest, it would take the listener into distant lands and give rise to all kinds of wonderful psychedelic effects. The front cover is fairly standard for 1969, so I suggest we turn to the smörgåsbord of phototype on the back instead. A typophile’s therapy!