One year after MGM Records released The Very Best of Hank Williams, they followed up with a second compilation album. This time, the art department opted against a portrait of the legendary country singer, and for an entirely typographic cover design.

Williams’ name is set in a version of Egyptian Ornamented. “The very best of” is added in caps from Akzidenz-Grotesk Extra. Each of the twelve song names is shown in a different typeface. Or almost: one typeface appears twice. Can you spot it?

[More info on Discogs]

Folk legends Peter, Paul and Mary’s 1978 full length Reunion uses ITC Didi for its front and back cover title. Album credits are set in Century Schoolbook.

Allmusicguide.com’s Bruce Eder said about the album:

Much underrated, with a hauntingly beautiful version of Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young.”

Design and art direction by Milton Glaser.

[More info on Discogs]

The Berkeley Tribe is possibly the most famous “New Left” newspaper. Centered in Berkeley, California, it (like other publications) focused on revolutionary subject matter (Black/Women's Liberation, Gay rights, Antiwar Movements, etc.). Their headquarters were at multiple times bombed or shot, with the FBI surveilling their operation.

The masthead, like with many famous magazines, such as TIME, is a custom lettering.

Crediting designers for each issue can be tricky, as intimidation from attacks and police prompted staff to remove their names from the masthead. However, East Bay Media is noted to have served the tribe's publishing and at least some graphic design from 1971, the time of this issue here (it is possible other Berkeley area shops filled a similar role during the paper's run, too).

Early covers and hand lettering are credited to designer Gary Grimshaw, who possibly did not work on this particular specimen.

Shown here are the cover and a selection of eleven of the twenty-four pages, featuring most of the display fonts used in the editorial design at least once. Text is set in Univers and Century Schoolbook.

Headlines in Dom Casual (“The Unknown Defendant”) and Clarendon (“Justice We Don’t Expect From You”)

Publicity Gothic (“No Future Rev No Family”) and Clarendon

“Weather Sister Ripped Off At Flicks” is in Roberta.

Headlines in Antikva Margaret (“U.S. Bombs”) and Windsor Elongated (“Thoughts On Being Human”)

Grotesque No. 9 for “SIERRA” and “feedback”

Franklin Gothic for the “Pusherman” headline, De Vinne for “Human Culture Time-Line”

Cooper Black and Haas Inserat Grotesk for “War-Season’s Greetings from JAPAN” . The ad below features two weights of Blippo (equivalent to Burko and Harry) and City.

Profil for “OKINAWA”. The ad for Midnight Films uses Mistral.

More Inserat-Grotesk for “The Sacred Tree is Dead”. Times New Roman is used for the poem at the bottom right.

The “KILL ’EM” headline is set in Windsor. Smoke and Futura feature for the Free Store ad and Helvetica for the one by Sound City.

The “Masturbation” headline is in Jay Gothic. Fonts used in the ads include Flash (“Native Son”) and Commercial Script (“MANDRAKE’S).

First edition (hardcover) by Bartholomew House, 1967, illustrated by Bill Wenzell. The illustrations on the front of jacket are by Roy E. LaGrone. Secondary typefaces include Craw Clarendon Condensed, Filmotype Harmony (or Photo-Lettering’s copy, Almadine Script), and Century Expanded Italic.

Coffee Tea or Me? was advertised as “the uninhibited memoirs of two airline stewardesses”, and credited to Trudy Baker and Rachel Jones. In fact, it was ghost-written by Donald Bain. The 1967 hardcover dust jacket features Caruso Roxy, set in all caps. The same typeface was also used for the paperback cover, now bigger and in mixed case, as well as for the three sequels published until 1975. In 1973, the book was made into a film.

Caruso Roxy is a typeface that we’ve come to associate with the swinging 60s.

Coffee Tea or Me? The uninhibited memoirs of two airline stewardesses. First Bantam edition (paperback), November 1968 with cover art by Bill Wenzel and small text in all-caps News Gothic.

The Coffee Tea or Me Girls’ ’Round the World Diary. First edition (hardcover) by Grosset & Dunlap, 1970. The multilingual toasts are stereotypically added in more or less fitting typefaces: Peignot (French), Post-Antiqua (Hebrew), Cloister Black (German), Centaur (Spanish), Akzidenz-Grotesk Extended (Scandinavian), Jessen-Schrift (Greek), Americana (English), Mandarin (Japanese), and Century Schoolbook (Italian).

Jacket and cover with spine lettering

The Coffee Tea or Me Girls’ ’Round the World Diary. Paperback edition by Bantam Books, April 1971, with small type in Alternate Gothic.

The Coffee Tea Or Me Girls: Lay it On The Line, Bantam Books, 1973. The fat years are over: the main typeface now is Caruso Roxy’s light weight. Secondary text is in italic caps from Caledonia.

The Coffee Tea Or Me Girls Get Away From It All, Bantam Books, 1975, with Helvetica used for the text in red.

The film Sentimental Value uses Waldenburg Semi-Condensed Black for its logo and credits, Waldenburg Regular for the quotes in the trailer, and Waldenburg Medium for the film posters. Century Schoolbook or similar serves for the blurb sources.

The synopsis is presented as follows by Letterboxd:

Sisters Nora and Agnes reunite with their estranged father, the charismatic Gustav, a once-renowned director who offers stage actress Nora a role in what he hopes will be his comeback film. When Nora turns it down, she soon discovers he has given her part to an eager young Hollywood star.

Source: open.spotify.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Minnie ’n Me: Songs Just for Girls album cover (1990), ft. the italic and roman styles of ITC Century Bold Condensed for secondary text

From The Disney Wiki:

Minnie ’n Me was a 1990s merchandise branding program from the Walt Disney Company featuring the comic character Minnie Mouse in her childhood days. Her youthful companions include Daisy Duck, Clarabelle Cow, Penelope “Penny” Pooch, Patti Pony, T.J. Turtle, Heather Hippo, Lilly Lamb, Minnie's dog, Fifi, and Daisy's kitten, Trixie. Later on, Disney added Figaro, Mickey Mouse, and Donald Duck to the mix. On the whole, this line of merchandise was mainly targeted towards elementary-aged girls ages 4–9.

There was a wide variety of Minnie ’n Me products, including dolls and other toys, trading cards and stationary, perfume and jewelry, luggage, bedding and more. The logo used for this brand is based on Sweetheart, and some of the merchandise, mostly books, actually uses the typeface.

Similar in design to Photo-Lettering's Bonaparte and Lettergraphic's Spring, Sweetheart features terminals and tittles decorated with hearts and an alternate B with a heart-shaped counter. Additionally, its f, t and ! have arrow-like qualities that suggest Cupid and his bow.

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

My Favorite Book: A Book of Verse (1990)

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

Where's Fifi? book cover (Little Golden Books, 1992)

Source: maryam.crpsy.com License: All Rights Reserved.

What Will I Wear? book cover (Little Golden Books, 1991)

Source: www.etsy.com beanandbearstoreUS. License: All Rights Reserved.

Minnie’s Slumber Party (Little Golden Books, 1992)

Source: archive.org License: All Rights Reserved.

Spread from Cooking Together: A Book of Recipes (1990). The text typefaces are Century Schoolbook and Helvetica.

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

Toy china tea set

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

Audio cassette that came with the book When We Grow Up (1990), additionally featuring ITC Century Bold Condensed Italic and Helvetica (incl. Helvetica Condensed)

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

Trading card packs with card pack box

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

Paper plate

Cover for the edition by Mandarin Publishers, Hong Kong / UK

The Mysterious World of Dinosaurs is a non-fiction book written by John Heritage and illustrated by Francis Phillipps and others. It was originally published in 1980 by Octopus Books, London, for WH Smith. The ravages of time have left their mark on Helvetica.

Title page from a 1983 reissue by Treasure Press, ft. Trooper Roman. The small print is in Times New Roman.

Table of contents ft. ITC Caslon No. 223 and Univers

Chapter beginning with the heading in ITC Caslon No. 223 Light. The text typeface is Century Schoolbook.

Guitar for Sentimental Lovers is a 1972 instrumental pop and easy listening album by Nashville session guitarist Harold Bradley (1926–2019). Released on the Harmony Records label, the album features Bradley on guitar, performing songs like “Dream” and “Moon River”, and showcases his work beyond his extensive work with other artists. Century Schoolbook Italic is the main typeface for the title and song lists.

[More info on Discogs]

Surfer Girl is the third studio album by The Beach Boys, released in 1963 on Capitol Records. It marked the first time Brian Wilson was credited as the group's sole producer and features early classics like the title track “Surfer Girl”, “Little Deuce Coupe”, and “In My Room”.

The album title and band name is set in an italicized version of Latin Condensed. Song names are set in what appears to be Inserat-Grotesk and another, less compressed sans that’s yet unidentified. The cover photo was taken by Capitol Records staff photographer Ken Veeder. The cover was designed by Capitols in-house art department.

[More info on Discogs]

The back cover features News Gothic and Century Schoolbook.

Decca SLK 16834-P. Ted Heath’s name is in Univers; the track list in Akzidenz-Grotesk.

Ted Heath (1902–1969) was a British big band leader. His 1967 album Swing Is King was issued in a number of cover variants. The image above shows what I believe to be the original design. The photo depicts royal insignia – crown, orb and scepter – on a throne, surrounded by musical instruments, with red curtains in the back. Above, the title is set in capitals from an ornamented typeface. It’s Karnac, which originated at the Dickinson Type Foundry in Boston in 1884, and was adopted for phototypesetting by VGC in 1967. The typeface choice continues the theme of regal pomp. It certainly helped that some of the ornamentation in John F. Cumming’s design echoes the fleurs-de-lis seen on the crown.

The variant shown below is an example of a fine cover ruined by series design: someone at Decca/London Records decided that it additionally had to feature the large numeral 4 from the Phase 4 Stereo design (cf. Chacksfield Plays the Beatles’ Song Book). The already complex photo is now cut up by thick white lines. And there wasn’t enough space left at the top, so the title had to be crammed into the small field at the top left. Too much elements, and too little space for Karnac to breathe.

A German reissue from 1969 (last image) replaces Karnac with Moore Swash, a VGC original by James H. Moore and shows the artist’s name in Times New Roman. For some reason, the photograph was mirrored for this variant.

[More info on Discogs]

London Records SP 44104. The track names are here set in Trade Gothic.

The gatefold has the liner notes set in Trade Gothic Condensed, with the numeral 4 shown in negative. The text about Phase 4 Stereo on the right uses Century Schoolbook. Lowercase Futura serves for the heading.

Decca DS 3198/1-2 double LP

The Briarcliff Orchestra Plays… is a 1969 album released by The Briarcliff Orchestra on Harmony Records. Album title and song list are exclusively set in a single size from Century Schoolbook Italic.

[More info on Discogs]

Album cover – U.S. Stereo version

The novel triangular features of Novel Gothic turn up in another Columbia album, 1965’s Turn! Turn! Turn! by the Byrds.

The title, with rounded lowercase r might be hand-drawn, with a triangularized exclamation mark that seems to have been inspired by the Novel Gothic below. The song names are set in Century Schoolbook Bold. Liner notes are printed on the back of the cardboard sleeve in Akzidenz-Grotesk.

Ancillary text uses the record label’s typical house style and typefaces, which vary in some cases by market. For example, the record labels of the German version use a combination of Metro No. 2 and Erbar-Grotesk.

Columbia Records used the CBS imprint outside of the USA and was owned at the time by the Columbia Broadcasting System (then a major radio and television company).

[More info on Discogs]

Rear of album cover – U.S. Stereo version

Album cover – Germany Stereo version

Record label – Germany version

Record label – Germany version

In the style of a newspaper from the Great War, L’Homme Tranché is the result of workshops led by Benjamin Marquet, a teacher for history and geography at Collège Paul Éluard in Montreuil, France. The articles were written by middle school pupils, while the layout and printing of the newspaper were designed by Bureau Roman Seban, with their assistance. The four-page newspaper measures 23×32 cm and was printed by Association Presse Offset, Paris

Contralto Xsmall Bold (8pt) and Xsmall Regular (7 pt)

Rodda’s is a creamery in Cornwall, England, specializing in traditional regional dairy products. It’s best known for their Cornish clotted cream.

In 1890 their great-great-grandmother, Eliza Jane Rodda started making Cornish clotted cream in her farmhouse kitchen here in the heart of Cornwall. Now they are in the fifth generation of the family business, and they still craft their Cornish Clotted Cream in the very same way, making Eliza Jane proud.

The logo in Pretorian has been in use at least since 2001. This typeface originated around the time Eliza Jane started the business. The secondary brand typeface is Century Schoolbook. The website additionally feature Local Market and Local Market Script. While the slogan “Keepers of the cream since 1890” is set in Mrs Eaves, the font used for “227g” on the label shown above is yet unidentified.

Hovedstaden bag facaden (“The capital behind the facade”) by Ulf Svane and Mathias Kobberrød Rasmussen of Copenhagen Archive is a 400-page photo book, published by Lindhardt & Ringhof, documenting the small, local, historical, and unfortunately disappearing businesses of the city of Copenhagen.

Spine Studio did the layout using Malamocco and Century Schoolbook.

From Humboldt Books:

Templi per lombardi laboriosi. Architetture di Mario Galvagni a Inveruno
Temples for Industrious Lombards. Architecture by Mario Galvagni in Inveruno

Suspended shell structures, underground living rooms and luminous domes. On the Lombard plain between the Ticino valley and the industrial outskirts of Milan, ensconced amid fields of crops, lies Inveruno, home to the architecture of Mario Galvagni, designed between the 1960s and 1980s for local industrial families. These villas would host large dinner parties and masked balls, as captured in the photographs unearthed from Gianni Saracchi’s archive. Each house is unique while still sharing something with the others: each is a temple where the industrious Lombard lives with his family and hosts fruitful business meetings. The architecture, photographed by Allegra Martin and Francesco Paleari, serves as the backdrop against which Emmanuela Carbé and Paolo Colagrande’s stories take shape. A critical essay by Francesca Olivieri frames the oeuvre of Mario Galvagni.

Architect, painter, sculptor, and physicist Mario Galvagni was an eclectic figure whose influence is evident throughout this book. Designed with specific references to his works and persona, the typography is informed by a clear minimalistic approach while simultaneously paying homage to his maximalist ethos. Folio is utilised for the photographic galleries and essay, Simoncini Garamond for the short stories, and Century Schoolbook for the front and end matter, as well as the notes. These typefaces alternate throughout the sections, complementing one another to reflect the layered yet understated aesthetic of the mid-to-late 20th century Italian middle-upper class.

The bilingual paperback (Italian and English) has 326 pages and measures 16.5×20.6 cm.
ISBN 9791280336255

It was edited by Elisa Di Nofa and Francesco Paleari, with contributions by Emmanuela Carbé, Paolo Colagrande, Allegra Martin, and Francesca Olivieri. Graphic design by BIFFIPOL, with book design by BIFFIPOL and zoll.

Video by Michele Foti with Mandunese

The website for Philippe Tourriol, designed by WA75, showcases the artist’s work in both Paris, France, and Marfa, Texas.

The artist’s name is set as concrete poetry in HEX Franklin, a typeface inspired by the iconic Franklin Gothic type family. Meanwhile, the main text is set in Standard, Bryce Wilner’s interpretation of Akzidenz-Grotesk. The third font at play is a custom version of C059 Roman, a version of Century Schoolbook by URW remixed by WA75.

HBO. License: All Rights Reserved.

Industry, season 1 (2020)

Mickey Down and Konrad Kay’s HBO series Industry makes use of a semibold style of Tusker Grotesk by the British graphic and type designer Lewis McGuffie. The title sequence of the drama series that premiered in 2020 has been created by Peter Anderson. Alternately, the title sequence is replaced during the opening or closing of the episodes by a “distorted” version of the title, which is either superimposed on sequences or plain black background.

The logo of the fictional London investment bank Pierpoint & Co. is set in Century Schoolbook (with a slightly titled e). A purple hoodie bearing the company name became so popular that HBO ended up marketing it, along with other fictive corporate merchandise.

HBO. License: All Rights Reserved.

HBO. License: All Rights Reserved.

Industry, season 2 (2022)

HBO. License: All Rights Reserved.

Industry, season 3 (2024)

Source: www.peterandersonstudio.co.uk HBO. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.peterandersonstudio.co.uk HBO. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.peterandersonstudio.co.uk HBO. License: All Rights Reserved.

Abracadabra was an experimental poetry review that ran for five issues from 1977 to 1981. It published contributions from American and European poets and artists, including Philip Whalen, John Giorno, Joe Brainard, Anne Walden, Michael Gibbs, and Jack Hirschman.

The first issue introduced the collection with a typographic cover, delicately hand-drawn by the painter and poet Franco Beltrametti. It features a single frame, three lines of glyphs, eleven uppercase letters, and countless dots—a blend of elements that establishes the magical essence of Abracadabra.

The book’s interior was created by designer Suse Hahn, using Eurostile’s Bold Condensed for the authors’ names and Century Schoolbook or similar for the poems. The two typefaces are intentionally overlaid with handwritten elements, a graphic choice that disrupts conventional reading, infusing the content with an expressive and personal narrative.

Seymour Chwast’s Blimp was added to Photo-Lettering’s alphabet range around 1969. In the same year, a two-colored Blimp A (the variant with stripes) appeared on the cover of Gotta Groove. It’s the second album by the Bar-Kays, the backing group of Stax Records. It’s also the first one after four band members were killed in a horrible plane crash, together with Otis Redding. Trumpeter Ben Cauley, the only survivor of the crash, and bassist James Alexander, who was on another plane, rebuilt the group.

The cover design is by Beverly Parker, with art direction by Honeya Thompson. Discogs credits Thompson with the design of about three dozen album covers. Most of those were made in a single year, 1969, for Stax and their sublabel Volt. An article in Cashbox from February 1969 has some info about her:

Honeya Thompson has been assigned the post of assistant art director [for Stax Records and its affiliated labels]. […] Miss Thompson is a graduate of LA’s Otis Art Institute. She has freelanced as an illustrator for Capitol Records, Gallin & Bright Advertising Agency, Robert Miles Runyan Advertising and West magazine.

Originally released in 1969 on Volt Records, the images show a 1971 UK issue on Stax.

[More info on Discogs]