He’s not so good in a crowd but when you get him alone
You’d be surprised,
He isn’t much at a dance but when he takes you home
You’d be surprised

Sheet music of Irving Berlin’s 1919 song released to capitalize on the success of a 1940 cover by Bonnie Baker with Orrin Tucker and His Orchestra.

The song title and songwriter are in Phenix American, with faux small caps, while “By” is added in Quick. All other text is hand lettering.

Nine years after his first book, You Can’t Print That!, George Seldes (1890–1995) used a very similar title: You Can’t Do That is “a survey of the forces attempting, in the name of patriotism, to make a desert of the Bill of Rights”. It was published by Modern Age Books in 1938 and includes a selected bibliography on civil liberties in the United States, compiled by Clarice A. Rosenthal, M. Meeker, M. Ottenberg, and others for the American Civil Liberties Union.

For the title, book designer Robert Josephy chose Signal – a typeface he already used two years before, for Edmund Wilson’s Travels in Two Democracies. The author’s name is in Tempo Heavy with its long-legged R. The articles appear to be set in Futura. The full-circled C in “Congress” and the straight comma and semicolon don’t match Futura, but I’m not aware of a closer match. Maybe Josephy touched up the setting manually [Bryson identified it as Vogue with alternates, see comments].

The back of the jacket advertises the Seal Books imprint. It features Bauer’s Quick, known in the United States as Trafton Script. Copy is set in Sans Serif, Monotype’s copy of Kabel, which is distinguished by the lower bar in A and the top-heavy S, among other things. The bottom line is Tempo Medium Italic with its distinctive flat exit strokes.

The cover of the Scottish brochure, written by Maurice Walsh, “The Romance of Scotland”, shows the Tolbooth and clock on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh’s Old Town.

These brochures were issued by the Associated British and Irish Railways, a joint marketing organisation that had its origins with the LMSR, joined by the LNER and SR, in 1934 and to whom would be added the GWR and GSR (I) in 1935. They issued folders, primarily for the US and North American markets, showing the utility of the railways for tourists and visitors travelling across the Atlantic and the publications echo the styles of the various main line railway's own annual editions of similar publicity folders.

The 1939 series have several examples of these attractive photo/art montage covers, signed “M” – Reginald Mayes. They would sadly be the last such brochures issued as with the outbreak of war later in 1939 such trans-Atlantic travel became almost impossible. In post-war years by the time marketing became more active the nationalised British Railways had taken over in 1948 and interestingly used many of the same office and agency locations as listed in ABR publicity.

The titles on the covers are handlettered. Those for Scotland and England closely follow Bauer’s Quick AKA Trafton Script, but are bolder in weight. The one for Ireland is based on Beton extrafett, featuring its alternate R with curved leg. The line below is in caps from Beton fett, this time with the straight-legged R. “The Romance of Scotland and “This is England” are patterned after Gill Sans Condensed. This typeface is also used directly, in two widths, for the information at the bottom of each cover.

This is the cover of the England brochure, “This is England”, showing the Palace of Westminster with the then Clock Tower, home of “Big Ben”.

Front and back cover of “Ireland on the road to Europe”, with text by Lynn Doyle

Howard A. Trafton’s Quick aka Trafton Script (1933) served as the model for this neon sign on the shop front of a florist on Wendenstraße, Braunschweig, Germany. Photo taken by Monsieur Adrien in October 2019. The age of this sign is unknown, but it has seen better days.

Klimsch’s specimen card for Quick included a reference to flowers: Rosenschau im Ostpark (“Rose show at East Park”).

Roxy Music toured in 1973 with a Quick drum, borrowing the typeface from the cover of their debut album. This footage is from their April 3, 1973 appearance on the The Old Grey Whistle Test.

Piep de Muis (Peep, the mouse) is a publication in the series “Het Bonte Boekenhuis”. This booklet was heavily used, and inside there is no page to be found that was not scribbled on in spite of the designated “ruimte om te tekenen” (space for drawing) at the end of the booklet.

The story is typeset with Italian Old Style. The publication is undated, but the use of Quick and Welt-Antiqua (sold in the Netherlands by the Amsterdam Type Foundry as Atlas) with its wide-legged capital M means it was probably published after 1933.

Ad in Drukkers Weekblad (Printers’ Weekly), Christmas edition 1938, presenting the three binding methods offered by H. van Rijmenam’s bookbindery, Oranjelaan 21, The Hague.

This cover is most likely hand lettered, based on Trafton Script. At that time it was easiest to draw extra large titles like this because type rarely came in sizes this big.

Trafton Script (a.k.a. Quick) was a popular script face for American school yearbooks in the 1940s and ’50s. The 1943 yearbook for this Atlanta-area women’s college is designed around Trafton, with a recurring ribbon motif that echoes the typeface’s strokes. In some places, where large text is required lettering based on Trafton replaces the font.

Again, a hand-lettered title based on Trafton (and Beton licht). Not as carefully drawn as the cover.

Ad for a tool for opening seams, removing buttons etc. “D·R·P” stands for Deutsches Reichspatent, so this is from before 1945. Quick was first cast in 1933.

Venus Extended

This portfolio from Bauer Alphabets Inc. (the U.S. arm of Bauersche Gießerei) contains about 30 sheets showing examples of Bauer types in use. The publish date is unknown, but the style of the design, the imagery, and the release dates of the typefaces shown indicate mid 1950s.

Horizon (Imprimatur in Germany)

Bauer Topic (Steile Futura in Germany)

Bernhard Cursive (Bernhard Schönschrift in Germany) and Bauer Bodoni

Elizabeth and Weiss (Weiß-Antiqua in Germany)

Hellenic Wide and Venus Extended. The Leica M-3 was introduced in 1954, and these ads appeared as early as 1955, indicating that this specimen must have come sometime after.

Cartoon (Fresko in Germany) and Futura

Corvinus and Stradivarius (Symphonie in Germany)

Trafton Script (Quick in Germany) and Weiß

Cover of the German vinyl single re-release (Polydor, 1976), reusing the artwork from the self-titled debut album (Island Records, 1972).

The last two images show the inner sleeve of the original LP. Cover concept: Bryan Ferry. Art: Nicholas deVille. Photography: Karl Stoecker. Artwork by C.C.S. “The cover features model Kari-Ann Muller, one of the rare Roxy models who didn’t date Bryan Ferry. She later married Mick Jagger’s brother Chris and appeared in the James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”—Discogs

This is the 50th anniversary yearbook for West High School, my alma mater. I first attended West High a little more than 50 years later, in 1992.

The cover and title page script is very likely hand lettered, but the script font used throughout the book is Quick (sold as Trafton Script in the U.S.). Quick is not too far from Biscotti, used by André Mora to emulate vintage yearbooks for his Beerbook design. The sans used throughout is Vogue, one of the Futura followers that never made it to digital format. The ad section introduces a few other faces, including Corvinus, Ultra Bodoni, Cooper Black, Gillies Gothic, and Copperplate Gothic.

Patria portable typewriter ad, Switzerland, 1930s.