Es Pop in Madrid describes itself as ‘an independent publisher specializing in topics related to popular culture.’ Among many topics, they published a pile of fine books on music stars, from Johnny Cash to Curtis Mayfield and from Lemmy to Kiss’s Paul Stanley. The covers, mostly designed by the in-house studio El Pulpo Design, radiate pure pleasure in translating a book’s content into a striking combination of typography, stylized images, and color.

Cowboy Song by Graeme Thomson is the 2016 biography of Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott. Es Pop Ediciones produced the Spanish translation the next year.

Lynott’s portrait was created by illustrator César Sebastián. The combination of typefaces is both loud and subtle. The title is set in Berlin Sans by David Berlow and Matthew Butterick, simultaneously published by FontFont and Font Bureau in 1992. The family was based on an extra-bold bold metal display font designed in Berlin, named with the Spanish word for ‘Black’ — Negro (1930). No racist meaning at the time.

The expressive headline font was combined with two versions of a contemporary typeface by Kimmy Kirkwood: Bourton Base and Burton Marquee.