French edition of the single from The Stooges’ second album, Fun House, from 1970. Tom Copi’s cover photo captures the crucial moment Iggy Pop left the stage and walked on a sea of hands, while smearing himself with peanut butter. The combination of Contest (Mecanorma’s copy of Davison Psyche) and Charleston for the song titles is quintessential for the era, while the band name is a logo created by Elektra records art director William S. Harvey, as he had done for labelmates The Doors, Love, MC5 and others. It appears to be derived from Kabel Black.

[More info on Discogs]

Fela Kuti and his Africa ’70 released Open & Close in 1971, on the His Master's Voice record label. The album art, designed by Grace Okotie-Eboh Oduro – here credited as Mamuli Okotie-Eboh – and Kayode Ademola, sports two typefaces on the front cover. The title is set in Tuscan Ornate, Mecanorma’s version of a 19th-century design also carried by Letraset as Romantiques No 5, and the band’s name uses Arnold Böcklin. The back cover uses pairs an illustration with the album title, this time set in Contest.

[More info on Discogs]

NP10, April 2023

Contest in use on posters for NP10 and NP11, two nights of jungle, breaks, and drum ’n bass held by Negative Pace in Melbourne, Australia.

NP11, July 2023

Source: archive.org Aeroméxico. License: All Rights Reserved.

An Aeroméxico DC-10-30 as shown on a postcard from 1975

Founded in 1934, Aerovías de México is the flag carrier of Mexico. In February 1972, the airline shortened its name to Aeroméxico and introduced a new color scheme – orange and black – as well as a new logo.

This logo is custom drawn, but clearly based on a typeface that originated as Davison Psyche. Drawn by Dave Davison for Photo-Lettering, it features blocky caps with punched-out oval counters and flat tops and bottoms. The bold wide letterforms are additionally warped to feature concave lefts and convex rights. Psyche was first shown in the Psychedelitypes booklet from 1968. Shortly after, Mecanorma produced a close copy for dry transfer lettering named Contest.

Composite: Florian Hardwig. License: All Rights Reserved.

The Aeroméxico logo (middle, from a 1975 print ad) compared to Davison Psyche (top, as shown in PLINC’s Psychedelitypes, 1968, scan courtesy of Alex Jay) and Mecanorma Contest (bottom, digital version by ITF)

The unknown logo designer modified all letterforms to various extents – for example, the bite out of the top of M isn’t as huge – but kept other characteristic details like the oblique counters. The O was made convex on both sides, which kind of works between R and M, but less so for the second one following C. The execution may leave something to be desired. Still, I find it rad that a national airline went with such a spacy lettering style. Only in the 1970s!

The wordmark is used together with the Eagle Knight emblem. Inspired by the ancient culture of Mexico, it is “a symbol of courage, leadership, and fearlessness”. [Aeroméxico] See more images on Vintage Airliners.

In 1981, the logo was replaced by a new one which, according to Sandy Campbell, was designed by Raúl Pérez-Duarte Viesca. LoGoLOOK has an overview of the evolution of the Aeroméxico logo.

Happy Cinco de Mayo to those who celebrate!

Source: www.ebay.com thejumpingfrog. License: All Rights Reserved.

Ticket wrapper

Source: www.ebay.com thejumpingfrog. License: All Rights Reserved.

Ticket wrapper. The subline “The Airline of Mexico” is in Eurostile Extended, the text at the top in Helvetica.

Source: www.ebay.com belinda1977. License: All Rights Reserved.

Airsickness bag

Source: www.ebay.com caraninfo. License: All Rights Reserved.

Boarding pass. The typeface used for the text is News Gothic.

Source: Aeromexico card game veromir_72. License: All Rights Reserved.

Aeromexico playing cards

Source: archive.org Aeroméxico. License: All Rights Reserved.

An Aeroméxico DC-9 as shown on a postcard from 1974

Source: archive.org Aeroméxico. License: All Rights Reserved.

An Aeroméxico DC-9 as shown on a 1970s postcard

Source: www.ebay.com shineyvintageshop. License: All Rights Reserved.

Sound of Confusion, the band’s 1986 debut album, released by Glass Records. Cover designed by Spacemen 3.

From Discogs:

Formed in 1982 in the town of Rugby by Pete Kember [...] and Jason Pierce [...], Spacemen 3 were to become one of the most important bands of the eighties, with their offshoots destined to spread out and become equally as vital in the nineties. Spacemen 3 and Jesus And Mary Chain were the godfathers of the shoegazer and drone-rock scene which blossomed in the U.K. at the close of the ’80s.

The band had a short but prolific life – they split up in 1989 but continued to release albums in the 1990s and 2000s, with previously unreleased tracks and live performances. The band designed the artwork of their first two album releases themselves, using Davison Psyche / Contest for the band name and title (first album) and band name (second album), and so a band logo was born. Some time later, a secondary band logo was designed, depicting an extraterrestrial creature’s eye mounted on a pyramid with the number 3 on it. Most albums of the band use either of the two logos, or a combination.

The different fonts used on album covers in combination with the band logo do not seem to be connected by any clear concept. Origin may be a thin red line, though: Shelley Script, Times New Roman and British Inserat were, like the band, created in the United Kingdom.

Recurring (recorded before the breakup, finished and released post-split) shows the numeral of the secondary band logo scattered and piled all over the cover. The band name and title are set in Zarana, a typeface of unclear origin, often credited to Compugraphic.

See also a previous post on Fonts In Use taking an in-depth look at the band’s Playing With Fire album, 1989.

The Perfect Prescription, released in 1987 by Glass Records with a cover designed by the band. The title is set in Matthew Carter’s Shelley Script.

Rerelease with original artwork (other rereleases have the title set in Eurostile).

Playing With Fire, published by Fire Records 1989. Design by the Robert Winterman Design Group. The condensed grotesk on a circle is British Inserat.

Performance – recorded in De Melkweg, Amsterdam in 1988, Glass Records / Fire Records. The grungy stretched typeface used for title and information is yet unidentified. The triangle logo replaces the number 3 from the original band wordmark.

Recurring, published in 1990 by Fire Records. The type used for the band name and album title is Zarana, slightly stretched (hello 1990s!) and contoured.

1978 annual front cover.

Space: 1999 is a British science-fiction television programme that ran for two series from 1975 to 1977.

For at least a few years a tie-in annual was published, titled Gerry Anderson’s Space: 1999. These covers are from the 1978 and 1979 annuals.

The fonts are Contest for the title (“SPACE 1999” in red on the front cover of the 1978 annual, white on the back, and also white for both covers of the 1979 annual), and Helvetica for ”GERRY ANDERSON’S”. The other secondary text seems to be in the similar Univers.

1978 annual back cover.

1979 annual front cover.

1979 annual back cover.

Established in 1895, Heijkens offers printing and engraving services, sign and stamp making, paper and packaging. Their current shop sign probably dates from the 1970s or 1980s. On Twitter, Isoletters comments:

This is an interesting case of #DutchIJ. The name of the shop (owner) is Heijkens – but the makers of the sign used the Y glyph of the typeface (Mecanorma Contest or some version thereof). Works fairly well, I think, as the glyph is shaped similarly to a classic ‘IJ’ ligature.

Mighty Peking Man (猩猩王, Mandarin: Xingxing Wang, which translates to “Gorilla King”) is a 1977 monster film. The titles in this trailer use Mecanorma’s Contest (or PLINC’s original Davison Psyche, 1968) and Dom Diagonal (1950). The trailer was apparently produced for re-release of the film in 1999 by Quentin Tarantino’s Rolling Thunder Pictures, see last image. It’s not known if the original 1977 release used this typography, too.

Mighty Peking Man is what happened when Hong Kong’s prolific Shaw Brothers Studios, best known for their run of kung fu epics, tried to cash in on the [financial, if not artistic] success of the 1976 remake of King Kong. Like Roger Corman, the Shaw Brothers in their heyday produced terrifically memorable cult items and monumentally inept and bizarre abominations, in equal proportions. Mighty Peking Man falls into the latter category. Arguably. Because for a while, its insanity is blissful. — Jon Abrams

2019 single by Jacuzzi Boys.

Renaissance Francis Lopez présente José Villamor dans La Perle Des Antilles de Francis Lopez

[More info on Discogs]

If this woman in shiny thigh boots looks familiar to you, it is probably because you are a loyal reader of Fonts In Use — Nick has previously posted a vintage paper bag with a variation of the same image. He explains:

The “Letter-Press” being referenced here is not the method of relief printing commonly associated with the term, but instead a design system of dry transfer lettering, much like the better-known Letraset rubdown sheets.

This full-page ad appeared in Graphis Vol. 25 No. 141 from September 1969. The flying carpet of typographic love in the background provides a glimpse into the range of faces available from Mecanorma at the time. In addition to several classics, there is Silva, a copy of Louis Minott’s Davida (originally issued by VGC in 1965), Contest, an adaptation (or should I say bootleg?) of Davison Psyche (PLINC, 1968), and Dreamline (cf. West Nouveau Compact, PLINC, 1968) — all of which are typical representatives of the late 1960s style. The type on the woman’s back combines Poster with a bright dab of color in Normandia, originally designed by Butti and Novarese for Nebiolo.

The trilingual copy that has been placed between the four legs (cf. Andy Warhol’s Double Elvis) is set in José Mendoza y Almeida’s Pascal. This typeface was included in Mecanorma’s library, too, and offered in sizes as small as 12pt. Laying down whole paragraphs with this must have been a pain in the neck. Apparently, there weren’t any umlauts, so they had to be added manually. (BTW, “Letter-Press ist der Abreibebuchstaben” isn’t proper German.)

Detail of Pascal fit to shape, with manually added umlauts. The ad is credited to “CEHES / Photo CHAPUIS”.

As the link to Jeremiah Adatte's description in the entry for Davison Psyche would indicate, Spacemen 3 tapped Meyer “Dave” Davison's psychedelic treat – via Mecanorma's version called Contest – for their iconic logo. Their first album from 1986 and early singles used only this typeface for their covers.

For Playing With Fire, the third album by Spacemen 3, the Robert Winterman Design Group paired the band logo with the condensed headline/display typeface British Inserat, which is also a part of the Mecanorma Collection and owes a lot to Schmalfette Grotesk (because of the Mecanorma connection and the appearance of the capital R, we will declare it British Inserat as opposed to Schmalfette Grotesk or Haettenschweiler). Both the words circling the album sleeve as well as the title with fire fill appear to be rendered in the condensed version.

Cover of albums first single, released in 1988, “Revolution.” Also featuring British Inserat.

Source: elcinefagodelalagunanegra.blogspot.de License: All Rights Reserved.

US poster by United Film Distribution Co., 1978

Dawn of the Dead from 1978 is the second film made in George A. Romero’s Living Dead series after Night of the Living Dead (1968). It is also known internationally as Zombi(e). Looking at the various international posters reveals that the film has at least four different typographic identities.

The iconic US poster shows the title in a skewed perspective. The capital sans serif letterforms (in red or green) are probably lettered, and not derived from a typeface. Only the letter ‘D’ has a stencil-like bridge. The typeface used for the tagline (“When there's no more room in HELL, the dead will walk the EARTH”) is Anzeigen-Grotesk. The tertiary text on the left is in one of the styles from Filmotype’s “G-series”, see Giant.

Some French, Spanish and German posters feature a very different but likewise non-typographic logo, with hand-drawn caps on a curve, dripping with blood, shaded and sometimes additionally outlined in venomous yellow (not pictured here). Note that in the German version, the ‘Z’ gets a crossbar (in line with the local preference in handwriting and signpainting). This splattery approach comes closest to the stereotype nowadays associated with zombiesque type.

Source: wrongsideoftheart.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Poster by Target International Pictures, UK, 1979. Artwork by Tom Chantrell. Printed by Broomhead Litho Ltd.

The UK poster by Tom Chantrell picks up the dramatic perspective effect of the US version, but applies it to an identifiable typeface: Here it is Paul Renner’s Futura Black that hints at the dark future to come. The secondary typeface is the squarish British Inserat.

Source: www.english-subtitles.club License: All Rights Reserved.

Poster by Constantin Film, Germany. Who took a bite out of the ‘M’?

The fourth interpretation of what zombie typography could look like can be found on various European posters. The set of crude blocky caps — deformed to have concave lefts and convex rights — was designed by Meyer “Dave” Davison and issued by Photo-Lettering, Inc. as Davison Psyche in c. 1968. It soon after was adopted by Mecanorma under the name Contest.

Source: www.ebay.ca License: All Rights Reserved.

Large-format poster by Titanus, Italy. Davison Psyche/Contest is spaced less tightly than in the German version.

Source: www.english-subtitles.club License: All Rights Reserved.

Another poster by Titanus, Italy, with the zombie head from the US poster rendered in black and white.

Source: imgur.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Poster by Ízaro Films, Spain. Davison’s letterforms were mindlessly redrawn, with all life sucked out of them.

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

Alternative poster by Ízaro Films, combining the “Zombi” logo in Davison Psyche with the original US version.

Source: silverferox.blogspot.de Silver Ferox Design. License: All Rights Reserved.

In a series of (more recent) alternative posters, Silver Ferox Design echoes the type choice of the original UK version. See more gory posters on their website.