Nubian (ATF) in use

Robert Trendler and His Orchestra – Porgy and Bess album art

Sun, 09 Jun 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Photo(s) by Bart Solenthaler on Flickr.

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Bart Solenthaler and tagged with “nubian”. License: All Rights Reserved.

An album with George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess as performed by Robert “Bob” Trendler (1912–2011) and His Orchestra, released on Grand Award Records in 1955 (G.A. 33-304).

The cover art, titled “Bess”, is by David Stone Martin (1913–1992). Martin served an art director for the United States Office of War Information during World War II. He is best known for designing more than 500 records covers, as well as a series of cover illustrations for TIME magazine.

Chances are that Casper Pinsker, Jr., the label’s art director, took care of the layout and typography. The extended extrabold is Nubian, designed by Willard T. Sniffin and issued by ATF in 1928. The “Grand Award” logo uses Caslon 540 Italic, with roman capitals.

[More info on Discogs]

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

Aviation and space travel coin sets by Shell

Florian Hardwig — Sat, 27 Jul 2019 12:22:51 +0000

Contributed by Florian Hardwig

Several months after the successful Apollo 11 mission, Shell somehow belatedly jumped on the moon craze bandwagon and issued a series of coins commemorating milestones from the history of aviation and space travel. The motifs range from Icarus and Daedalus to Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins. Gas station customers could obtain coins for every bigger purchase and collect them in designated cardboard holders.

This post shows several of the card designs that varied from country to country. It’s interesting to see which typefaces were deemed appropriate for this topic. In the Netherlands, the series was named Ruimte-avontuur (“space adventure”). The chosen typeface is a condensed phototype version of Nubian (ATF). The fat 1920s Didone was probably chosen for its gravitas. Its rocket-like (dare I say phallic?) i might have played a role, too.

Ruimte-avontuur, The Netherlands, with Nubian

Leidse Courant, 25 March 1970. The same ad was published in other Dutch newspapers, too. In another ad from June 1970, the end of the campaign was announced. Missing coins could be purchased for 25ct apiece. The ads pairs Nubian with Helvetica.

In the UK, the series was named Man In Flight and used the quaint Goudy Bold for the display typography. Like in the Dutch version, Univers is used for smaller text. In South Africa, a set of 20 coins was available as Man in Flight / Lugpioniers, with the title presented in Peignot. With its unicase letterforms, this 1930s avant-garde face probably comes closest to our today’s notion of a “space font”.

Man in Flight, UK, featuring Goudy Bold. Like in South Africa, the coins here were silver-colored, not yellowish as in other countries, and there were only 16 of them, omitting Heinkel HE 178, Bell XS-1, Wernher von Braun’s Jupiter C, and the Gemini 8 spaceflight.

The UK album shows British aviation pioneers John Alcock and Arthur Brown on the back.

Man in Flight / Lugpioniers, South Africa. The title in English and Afrikaans is shown in outlined Peignot.

In France, the coins were presented by Shell-Berre under the title L’épopée de l’espace (“The epic of space”), in tightly spaced light caps derived from Adrian Frutiger’s Univers, with custom flat accents. Univers for traversing the universe, what’s not to like?

L’épopée de l’espace, France, with customized Univers

Description texts set in Helvetica. Printed in West Germany by te Neues + Co., Kempen.

The Finnish version was called Lentävä Maailma (“The Flying World”). The type choice – Max Caflisch’s Columna, a set of open Roman inscriptional caps – seems to be inspired more by the commemorative aspect and less by the space theme. In Germany, the designers of Die Eroberung des Himmels (“Conquest of the sky”) went with the fett Kursiv (bold italic) style of Trump-Mediäval – a striking display face for sure, but not exactly what I would have expected. The secondary typeface here is Helvetica.

Lentävä Maailma, Finland, in Columna.

The information on the back is set in Helvetica. Printed in England.

Die Eroberung des Himmels, Germany, starring Trump-Mediäval Kursiv fett

I’m surprised that none of the designs feature one of the popular typefaces that nowadays are associated with space travel and (late 1960s) futurism, like Amelia, Moore Computer, or Yagi Double. The coins themselves were made by the Danbury Mint and use Optima Bold in all caps.

A selection of coins from the collection of David W. Boitnott. See all coins on his Coin-n-Medal Collectors’ Asylum.

The depicted series were preceded by another set of promotional coins by Shell issued in the United States in 1969. Available in aluminium and bronze, Man In Space focused on the U.S. manned space missions. These coins are not included here.

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

Aldous Huxley paperbacks, Harper & Row

Florian Hardwig — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 17:17:07 +0000

Island, 1972

Two paperback book covers designed and illustrated by Emanuel Schongut, and published in Harper and Row’s Perennial Classic series in 1972.

The typeface is Nubian, a nowadays seldom seen Fat Face with broad proportions. Designed by Willard T. Sniffin, it was first cast by American Type Founders in 1928. Nubian has very short serifs. In place of seriffed or ball terminals, several of its letterforms feature gently flared stroke endings, see e.g. S. Among its hallmark characters are i and j with half-circle dots as well as a curtailed g – neither of which is included on the covers shown here.

In the early 1970s, Nubian was available from Photo-Lettering, Inc., under its original name. Today there are several digital versions, including OPTI Nubian Foundry (Castcraft, 1990–1991), Noble (FontBank, 1992), Nubian (Dieter Steffmann, 1999), and Fansler (Walden Font Co., 2013).

Ape and Essence was first published in 1948. Island is Aldous Huxley’s final book, originally published in 1962. Aldous Huxley who was born on this day in 1894, 125 years ago.

Ape and Essence, 1972

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use