Pina Ball celebrates the 120th anniversary of the Pinacoteca de São Paulo. Referencing Lenora de Barros’s work Desmáscara (2025), commissioned for the occasion, the visual identity employs mirrored surfaces that position the viewer within the image.

The typographic composition combines Cochin by Georges Peignot (distributed by Linotype) and Pier Sans by Mat Desjardins (distributed by Pangram Pangram). Cochin is used at large scale and embossed across the mirrored surface, while Pier Sans structures the informational content in black. The contrast between the serif and sans serif typefaces establishes hierarchy and brings together historical references and contemporary application.

Eyes extracted from portraits in the Pinacoteca’s collection reinforce the motif of the mask, creating moments in which artwork and visitor appear to return each other’s gaze. The invitation and mask operate as complementary elements, extending the identity across different formats. The charity ball featured performances by Paulinho da Viola and Amaro Freitas.

Source: pictures.abebooks.com License: All Rights Reserved.

This copy of the first book in the series – first edition, first printing, signed by both the author and the illustrator – is currently offered for no less than $1,250,000 (shipping not included).

Cochin is the typeface used for the Harry Potter series of children’s fantasy novels as published by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom.

The covers of the seven books were illustrated by Thomas Taylor (vol. 1), Cliff Wright (vols. 2 and 3), Giles Greenfield (vol. 4), and Jason Cockcroft (vols. 5–7). The cover design at least for some books is credited to Michelle Radford.

Source: www.abebooks.com John Atkinson Book. License: All Rights Reserved.

Spines of a full set of first printings of the paperbacks

Source: www.abebooks.com Michal Sawka Rare Books. License: All Rights Reserved.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Bloomsbury, 2000 printing

Source: www.abebooks.com Michal Sawka Rare Books. License: All Rights Reserved.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Bloomsbury, 2000 printing

Source: www.abebooks.com Michal Sawka Rare Books. License: All Rights Reserved.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Bloomsbury, 2000 printing

Source: www.abebooks.com Michal Sawka Rare Books. License: All Rights Reserved.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Bloomsbury, 2000 printing

License: All Rights Reserved.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Bloomsbury, 2003

Source: en.wikipedia.org License: All Rights Reserved.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Bloomsbury, 2005

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Bloomsbury, 2007

The cover to Volume 1

The Witches’ Marriage is a yuri manga by Studio Headline. Initially published from 2021 to 2023, the series was localized by Yen Press from 2023 to 2024.

For witches, love is power, and to open the Door of Truth— the ultimate goal for any spellcaster—Melissa needs to forge the strongest bonds she can. By now, she’s perfected her routine: marry a naive witch, use her to gain power, and discard her afterward. Melissa’s next target is Tanya, a young girl who’s fascinated by magic and longs to follow in her new mentor’s footsteps. But Tanya has a charm unlike Melissa’s other brides, and her pure, innocent cuteness just might be enough to melt the ice-cold witch’s heart…

The title seems to use Dancing Script, with alterations made in red and white highlights added to replicate the style of the Japanese logo. Stars replace the tittles in the i’s. The author name uses Bodoni Bold. The header and numbers on the Contents page are set in Bernhard Modern, while the chapter titles use Aclonica. The letterer for the manga is Bianca Pistillo.

The Japanese volume 1 cover. The English title is set in Cochin Bold.

Serge Lutens “Bell Jar” fragrance packaging (c. 1992 – c. 2000)

Serge Lutens is an iconic niche perfume house with a devoted following. The fragrance line that bears the founder’s name was born of a series of collaborations with Shiseido, a Japanese cosmetic company. After Lutens served as olfactive director for such fragrances as Nombre Noir (1982) and Féminité du Bois (1992), Shiseido opened Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido to sell his fragrance creations in a Parisian boutique.

Over the years, the specific branding of these fragrances has transformed as the Serge Lutens brand gradually replaced the Shiseido labeling. The fragrances themselves remained consistent.

There have been two major revisions to primary and secondary packaging for a total of three distinct presentations. The initial packaging featured a color scheme of ivory and two shades of violet. The details on the box and label featured Shiseido, the brand’s corporate typeface with the distinctive S glyph for any occurrences of this letter in the fragrance’s name and Palais Royal Shiseido Paris. The volume declaration uses Optima, partly with stretched proportions.

The first revision occurred c. 2000 and introduced a major redesign. The color scheme was switched to black, ivory and grey and Serge Lutens’ name appeared on the packaging along with a stylized rendering of the façade of Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido. All text on the packaging is rendered in Cochin. Again, the scaling of glyphs in the volume declaration has been adjusted; in this presentation, the horizontal scale is set at 50%.

The second revision occurred in 2010. Compared to the previous revision, this revision is less dramatic. This version also features the most typographic variety. The color scheme was adjusted and elements that had previously been ivory have been changed to a light violet. Serge Lutens is rendered in Nicolas Cochin. The fragrance name is rendered in Caslon Openface (Bitstream’s version). As there is no italic or oblique version of this typeface, the glyphs have been sheared at approximately 15 degrees to simulate italics. The rendering of the Palais Royal Shiseido has been replaced with a stylized rendering of Serge Lutens’ initials. The text below this logo reading “Paris” is rendered in Nicolas Cochin. The fragrance concentration and volume disclosure remain as they were in the previous design, rendered in Cochin with the scaling of glyphs in the volume declaration still adjusted to a horizontal scale of 50%.

Serge Lutens “Bell Jar” fragrance packaging (c. 2000–2010)

Serge Lutens “Bell Jar” fragrance packaging (2010–)

Established in Paris by architect, designer and photographer Alexander Nino, Studio Asac is an interior design practice, furniture advisor and private antique dealer. Lareu & Gonzales – previously known as Horror Vacui Studio – were inspired by lettering from an engraver’s pattern from the early 1920s. They created a crisp, geometric semi script logotype, based on the font Adonis which was designed by Willard T. Sniffin in 1927.

Additional fonts in use include Biondi, Ray Larabie’s interpretation of Copperplate Gothic, Georges Peignot’s Nicolas Cochin, and Sigmund Freud Typeface, Harald Geisler’s digitization of the Austrian neurologist’s handwriting.

Carta Nueva is used here for the title of rapper myst milano.’s new album. Everything is beautiful and very detailed on this album cover and the accompanying posters: from the nails to the set up, the makeup and the hairstyle, the green yellow vinyl and finally the typeface.

Chosen by graphic designer Olenka Szymonski, Carta Nueva, designed by My-Lan Thuong for Sharp Type, is offering to this title an overkill of delicate details such as the V capital reaching over the letters “alley”. Carta Nueva is paired with a handful of other typefaces, such as Nicolas Cochin and Sequel 100 Black.

myst milano. is a well-known rapper but also a producer and a DJ from the Toronto scene of hip-hop, house, and black electronic music. “I offer Beyond the Uncanny Valley as a working anthology of Black electronic music across generational, geographical and genre lines,” myst milano. writes. “I thought a lot about staples of Black art across the world that can be traced back to Africa, and that link the diaspora regardless of where our people end up and throughout all eras.”

Beyond the Uncanny Valley was written, performed and produced by myst milano., with additional production by David Psutka. Portrait photography by Jorian Charlton with assistance from Joshua Rille.

A ticket for a Groundhog Dance held on the day before Groundhog Day in 1934 by the El Hezi Temple No. 215 of the Dramatic Order of the Knights of Khorassan (D.O.K.K.), which is associated with the Knights of Pythias. The El Hezi Temple was a local D.O.K.K. group in western Pennsylvania.

Groundhog Dance
Given by
El Hezi Temple No. 215, D.O.K.K.
Thursday, February 1, 1934 --- From 9 to ?
New K. of P. Home
Admission---75c Per Couple

“Groundhog Dance” uses Nicolas Cochin with faux small caps (or with initial caps from a larger size). The rest of the ticket is set in Kabel.

Drexciya was an afrofuturist techno duo from Detroit, consisting of James Stinson (1969–2002) and Gerald Donald. In 2015, Dutch label Clone released a 12″ with “alternate takes of two seminal Drexciya tracks”, “Black Sea” and “Wavejumper”, in their Clone Aqualung Series. The cover features an original design with a particular texture. In the center, the name is set in caps from Cochin.

[More info on Discogs]

Matthew Carter’s Shelley Script on the cover of a paperback edition of The Master and Margarita, published by Grove Press in the early 1990s, in Mirra Ginsburg’s translation from 1967. From Wikipedia:

The Master and Margarita (Russian: Мастер и Маргарита) is a novel by Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, written in the Soviet Union between 1928 and 1940 during Stalin’s regime. A censored version was published in Moscow magazine in 1966–1967, after the writer's death. The manuscript was not published as a book until 1967, in Paris. A samizdat version circulated that included parts cut out by official censors, and these were incorporated in a 1969 version published in Frankfurt. The novel has since been published in several languages and editions.

Shelley Script (1972) is based on the calligraphy of early eighteenth century English writing master George Shelley. It comes in three degrees of flourish; Adagio, Vivace, and Presto; this being Presto, with the curls on the swash cap M nicely echoing the cat’s tongue. While previous releases had three separate styles, Linotype’s OpenType version merges them into one font, with “Presto” made available via the Swash feature. Fun fact: The roman is another revival made by Carter in the 1970s: Cochin goes back to a design by Peignot & Fils from 1914. Carter reworked it at Linotype in 1977.

The cover was designed by Krystyna Skalski, with an illustration by Robert Goldstrom. The exact date is unclear to me. Cooper Hewitt dates it to 1991. The back cover suggests a printing date in 1992.

!!Going Places!! from 1965 is the fifth album by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Along with Whipped Cream and Other Delights from the same year, it became one of the group’s most successful releases. The album with instrumental Latin jazz/easy listening music was originally released by A&M Records, a company that Herb Alpert (A) had founded together Jerry Moss (M) in 1962.

The cover type is Windsor. First issued around 1905 by Stephenson Blake, it became immensely popular in the late 1960s and 1970s. The !!Going Places!! album was one of Windsor’s earlier prominent uses from this revival, preceding the use by Whole Earth Catalog from 1968 on. Peter Whorf Graphics designed the cover, using a photograph taken at Movieland of the Air in Santa Ana, California.

[More info on Discogs]

Back cover with liner notes by Charles Champlin and track names set in Monotype’s Cochin.

The “scarlet A” is a symbol used by atheists to recognize each other, started by the Out Campaign. It's a red capital A from the Zapfino typeface. The Out Campaign is a is a public awareness initiative for freethought and atheism in the United States, founded by Robin Elisabeth Cornwell, and endorsed by Richard Dawkins. From Wikipedia:

The campaign aims to create more openness about being an atheist by providing a means by which atheists can identify themselves to others by displaying the movement’s scarlet letter A […] an allusion to the scarlet letter A worn by Hester Prynne after being convicted of adultery in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. It encourages those who wish to be part of the campaign to come out and re-appropriate, in a humorous way, the social stigma that in some places persists against atheism, by branding themselves with a scarlet letter.

A hard enamel lapel pin with the “scarlet A” was sold from Richard Dawkins’s website in 2007. The letterform here was made sturdier and less detailed.

“Scarlet A” button with the OutCampaign.org URL set in Cochin underneath.

Richard Dawkins wearing the “scarlet A” lapel pin at the 34th American Atheists Conference in Minneapolis, 2008.

Program cover for a Garden Fete, Holy Cross Church, Catford, May 5th 1923. Nicolas Cochin is paired with a headline in Narcissus (1921).

The Pelican Press was founded in 1916 by Sir Francis Meynell (1891–1975), with the active involvement of Stanley Morison – both of whom where key players in the world of British publishing. This post shows two program covers printed in 1923, featuring Nicolas Cochin and flower borders, which were reproduced in a self-promotional leaflet from 1924.

Glasgow Orpheus Choir Concerts, 1923. The Glasgow Orpheus Choir is still highly regarded – at this date, under conductor Hugh S. Roberton, it was considered to be one of the best choirs in the UK. Roberton’s name is set in Cochin (sans Nicolas).

Designed by Georges Peignot and first issued by Peignot & Fils in France in 1912, Nicolas Cochin was cast by various type foundries, including ATF in the United States, see this specimen from 1928. The French original didn’t include a bold style. Neither did ATF’s copy. It was added by the Caslon foundry in England, and by Ludwig & Mayer in Germany (as Fette Sonderdruck-Antiqua, 1926). McGrew mentions that Baltimore Type had a Nicholas [sic] Cochin Bold, too. I don’t know which came first, and if they were independent creations or copies.

One of these bold extensions was used for the jacket of the first edition of The Silent Witness by Melville Davisson Post (1869–1930). Published by Farrar & Rinehart in 1929 (or 1930?), the detective mystery novel was the last book by the author. Note the use of two different forms for S in the title. The forward-leaning one in “Silent” matches the one shown in a specimen for Fette Sonderdruck-Antiqua. The more upright one is the form depicted in McGrew’s glyph set for Nicholas Cochin Bold.

This dust jacket by Grosset & Dunlap has a different back side, featuring Hobo and Goudy Bold.

Cover ft. Nicolas Cochin.

La Sculpture Romantique (“The romantic Sculpture”) is a book written by Luc Benoist (1893–1980), a French art historian who was the first writer on this subject.

Title page ft. Sphinx.

“La Sculpture Romantique” is set in De Vinne Condensed or a version thereof, see e.g. FTF’s Canadiennes. The text typeface is yet unidentified.

The back cover shows a range of typefaces. “A travers L’art français” uses Bellery-Desfontaines Large, the wide style of a typeface series commissioned by Peignot & Fils from artist Henri Bellery-Desfontaines. It provided inspiration for Nysé (General Type Studio, 2021).

The book jacket of the first edition of The Green Pastures as published by Farrar & Rinehart in 1929 represents another use of a bold weight of Nicolas Cochin, see also The Silent Witness from the same year and publisher.

The title page features Goudy Handtooled (1922) in all caps.

The text on the back of the jacket is set in ATF Garamond, including its Bold Italic with swash caps for the first line.

This book is about Edmond Aman-Jean (1859–1936), a French symbolist painter and one on the main figures of the fin-de-siècle. It was published by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1970. Nicolas Cochin works well with the work of Aman-Jean because as we can see on this detail on a portrait of the sculptor Jean Dampt, he was familiar of sophisticated letter forms.

Detail from Edmond Aman-Jean’s portrait of sculptor Jean Dampt.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; printed by the Golden Cockerel Press, 1952; title page with illustration by Dorothea Braby.

The Golden Cockerel Press was one of the most noted English ‘fine’ press of the twentieth century, in production from 1920 until 1961. Under the ownership of Christopher Sandford between 1933 until 1959 it continued to produce many carefully designed and illustrated books. One of their most favoured artists of the period was Dorothea Braby (1909–1987).

Wild Grace is a skincare products line inspired by Ayurveda – a general wellness medicine system with roots in the Indian subcontinent, that focuses on the mind, body and spirit balance.

The visual identity finds its roots in ancient and mystical practices – a balanced typographic play on sophisticated imperfection, modern and gestural properties, unusual and organic rhythm, and an old world personality. The minimal approach to the packaging line reflects the founders’ vision – to develop a refined, almost exclusive eco-luxe product that merges method, tradition and precision with humanity and ritual.

The typeface choices revolved around this vision. Mabry, the modern grotesque with gestural properties illustrates method and precision, Schnyder’s organic features, almost lettering-like, illustrate humanity, and Nicolas Cochin brings in the old world ritual ingredient.

Client: Wild Grace
Visual identity: AWP
Photo direction: Mariane Vaillancourt
Illustration: Mireille St-Pierre

Cover with a hand-lettered nameplate and tagline. The information on the bottom of the page is set in Cheltenham on the left and Nicholas Cochin on the right hand.

This glossy avant-la-lettre is one of the numerous gems in the collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, accessible through their Rijks Studio: a website where the Rijksmuseum offers high resolution images of their collection, and where most of the images are free for download and (re-)use.

Art – Goût – Beauté, Feuillets de l’élégance féminine (Art – Taste — Beauty, a magazine about feminine elegance) was “A luxurious fashion magazine published in Paris from 1920 to 1933. It is illustrated with hand-colored pochoir images. Text is in French. Binding had gold sash.” (Otis.edu). Pictured here is the Christmas 1928 edition, No. 100.

Like the authors and the subject, the typography shows an international perspective, pairing typefaces from the USA (Cheltenham) and Germany (Block) with classical and more recent French type – Fournier Le Jeune and a trio of Cochins: Nicolas Cochin, Cochin and Moreau-le-jeune a.k.a. Cochin Blanc. In addition to letters, the printer/designer did not hold back when it comes to borders and rules and fleurons. You will find some of them in this Cochin catalogue by Debergny et Peignot from 1932.

For those who eager to pinpoint unidentified typefaces, there is an unknown Copperplate-like typeface on the third picture, and an interesting serif with square tittles and a Venetian e on the last picture.

What’s new: an advertisement on page 1. Custom lettering for the client (Redfern; Polyphème from 1910 has a similar lamppost r), with copy set in Nicholas Cochin, the magazine’s default typeface.

Page 4, more ads. The advertiser’s name is set in Fournier Le Jeune. Note the end swashes on r en e in the opening line in Nicholas Cochin’s italics. The complimentary caps with mini serifs are from a yet unidentified typeface similar to Copperplate Gothic. The text at the bottom is in (non-Nicholas) Cochin Italique with its characteristic cursive d and s.

Om page 15, a last advertisement before the articles start. Gant Fischl does not exist anymore, but judging from the depicted brand new factory (see also these photographs) it must have been a very successful brand. Korso, Ella Cursief and Rondka Urtyp are typefaces that have a similar feel as the hand-drawn logo. Text set in Cheltenham.

“Les Petits Riens qui sont Tout” (The little nothings who are everything) — must-haves for an elegant winter in Paris. Body copy set in italics from the typeface series that is used throughout the magazine: Cochin & Nicolas Cochin, by Peignot & Fils.

Page 18, corsets.

“Paris est Harmonie!” Opening page for the main part of the magazine: a series of illustrated single page style suggestions.

Page 26: an elegant hand-dawn drop cap, and a generous use of end swashes in the body copy.

Page 29. The decorated initial at the bottom appears to be from the Cochin series, too.

Page 41: a royal affair. An article by Princess Eugene Murat about luxury tableware, with a colored lithography of a solid marble and silver centerpiece for a dinner table.

Page 49, modern embroidery. Title set in Founier Le Jeune. Instead of using the swash caps, initial letters are set with the regular weight in a bigger size.

Page 51: Le sac à main et la mode – G. Silberstein discusses handbags. Title set in Moreau-le-jeune, an open style accompanying Cochin and issued by Peignot & Fils in 1913. It was copied by Barnhart Brothers & Spindler as Caslon Open Face.

Page 52.

Page 59, two advertisements, The top one mixes Cochin with Cheltenham, the “Darling-Cream” ad uses Block and a yet unidentified serif with Venetian e.