This compilation with “The Very Best of Chevalier” brings together a dozen hits by French singer, actor, and entertainer Maurice Chevalier (1888–1972), including “Valentine”, “Louise”, “Mimi”, and “Thank Heaven for Little Girls”. It was released in 1964 by MGM Records.

The big caps for “CHEVALIER” appear to be custom lettering, loosely based on Broadway (Condensed). The rest of the uncredited cover design is exclusively typographic, featuring twelve styles from ten typefaces (Peignot is represented by two weights, and Ultra Bodoni by roman and italic styles). Broadway also appears in unmodified form, for “Did You Ever See a Dream Walking”. Can you spot the LTypI?

[More info on Discogs]

Headlines are shown in all-caps Latin Bold. Some of the lines including “Travel wise – always travel by coach” are drawn by hand, though: zoom in to see small differences between repeating letters. The italic red caps appear to be from Miller & Richard’s Grotesque No. 4.

A rather fine and complex folding map giving details of the many express motor coach routes operated in England and Wales by the ‘principal’ bus and coach companies, a list of which appears at the base of the map. The folder gives information as to express services, coach holidays, chartering, sightseeing and coach-air services and is illustrated by images of suitably express coaches and happy passengers. The folder was issued at a time of great popularity for both express coach services and coach holidays – post-war years that still saw relatively low car ownership but with increasing wages and disposable income and before the onset of cheaper overseas holidays.

Amongst the photos I can make out a BMMO Midland Red motorway coach, passing what looks like a Bristol, and various vehicles that look to be both East Kent and Maidstone & District. The list of companies, organised geographically, contain some well known and often much missed names. Oddly the ‘Scottish’ connection points potential passengers to the Scottish Tourist Board and not the Scottish Bus Group.

The rather stylish graphics and map are signed “Reitz” who is an artist/designer I can find little about although they did similar maps and publicity for British Rail at the time.

Northern section of the map. Labels use Futura Condensed.

Southern section of the map. The list of principle bus and coach companies of Britain is set in two weight from Monotype Grotesque.

Plantin is used for the body text.

“Magic” is lettering based on Mad’s custom logo. The animated condensed sans-serif caps with contour used for “Dirty Tricks” are probably custom dran as well. The smaller text uses Futura Medium in caps.

Master cartoonist Al Jaffee (1921–2023) of Mad magazine, who is best known for his Mad Fold-Ins and Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions series, created this classic book of wild and psychotic magic tricks. Edited together with Jerry De Fuccio and published by Signet in 1970, it became a hit through North America and Europe, becoming a household item for many growing up in the 1970s.

After I found out about the passing of ole Jaffee I searched my library for works of his that I had found in antique/charity stores on my travels, as to dedicate a well deserved use on Fonts In Use. One of my most relished books of his is this, and what better book to include; it uses a great variety of typefaces alongside his timeless artwork.

Rest in peace Al, your work will never be forgotten (YECCH!).

The original page art for the book will be pictured whenever feasible instead of regular print pages, in order to get a clean view and fair insight. Imaging courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

Title page, featuring Clarion Wide (“The”), Mad’s outlined logo, Quentin or the virtually identical Davison Carousel F (“Magic”), Hobo (credits), and News Gothic (“A Signet Book”. locations). The wide futuristic sans for “New American Library” is probably a custom font used by Times Mirror, see Patrick Concannon’s comment. Corporate Image is similar.

Melior Bold Condensed is used for chapter headings, with a subheading in the original curved leg design of Beton Bold, each of which is written in all caps.

An example of News Gothic. This is the main text face (including the speech bubbles), and in most Mad books and magazines.

“Iron Stomach Man” is stylized in Orplid on a curve with its round-top form for A.

“The Great Bumbleoni” features Beton Extra Bold. Included in the artwork, a crossed-out sign in Playbill.

Within the last sentence of this introductory paragraph “MAGIC” is stylized in Clarendon Bold Condensed.

The “John” person that noted this suggestion in text (seen to the lower right of the page art) is John Putnam, presumably designing for this book.

Volta and Latin Bold Condensed used for a sign

More Playbill and Volta used for another sign.

From the top left, it features the Chop Suey styled Peking (“THE GREAT CHINESE”), Flyer (“MAGIC FOLD-IN”), and an unidentified bold wide grotesque (“PUZZLE”). The “A”/B” labels probably are in Optima Bold.

Orplid makes another appearance ("EBUC").

Futura is used for the foreword, along with a Bold heading. This foreword was only added after the reprints of the book.

In the dedication page, the heading is set in Commercial Script between ornaments, and the text in Bodoni.

In the preface, the initial “If” is set in Flash and the rest in News Gothic Bold.

On the back cover, the book’s tagline (“Amaze friends…”) is written in Alternate Gothic, and the book title is reiterated using Dom Casual in all caps.

The book spine features more Alternate Gothic.

This is the 1972 paperback edition of André Breton's Manifestoes of Surrealism. I believe the interior to be the same as the hardcover, but I don't know for sure. (As with the hardcover, the book design is credited to Quentin Fiore.)

The cover uses skewed Helvetica Compressed [see comments] for the author's name, and Inserat-Grotesk for the book title. The decorative dingbat is picked up from the hardcover design, and skewed to match the new type. Also, like the hardcover, note the unusual solution for the accent on the E in André, this time using a line parallel to the top bar of the E.

The interior of the book is notable for its use of a different text face for each section.

The title page spread uses Sans Shaded for the title and Anzeigen Grotesk for the author's name. The translator credits are in Bodoni Italic, and the publisher names are in Helvetica Medium.

The copyright page is in Times New Roman Italic, and the table of contents is in Helvetica.

The section openers are set in Bodoni Bold.

The texts are set in a mix of Baskerville, Century Expanded, Helvetica, and Bodoni Bold.

Within the first manifesto is “Poem,” randomly assembled from headlines and scraps of headlines, reset in many typefaces, including Cheltenham, Baskerville, Vulcan Bold Italic (see Greco, Latin Bold and Latin Wide, Windsor Bold, Beton Bold, and Clarendon.

The Abecedarian Book is “an alphabet book of big words for adults with the curiosity of children with the capacity of adults”. Written by Charles W. Ferguson and illustrated by John Alcorn, it was published by Little, Brown & Co. in 1964.

Carson turned Joe Connor’s Texas into a living Hell.

Phillip Boydell’s Festival Titling (Monotype, 1952) with customized solid letterforms, for the book cover of a Western novel by Kingsley West, published by Berkley Medallion in 1965.

Latin Bold Condensed with its characteristic H, paired with all-caps Lydian, for the cover of a recording by Austrian pianist Friedrich Wührer and the Bamberger Symphoniker, conducted by Jonel Perlea. The credits are set in what looks like Ludlow’s Caslon Bold Condensed. The album was released by Vox Productions, Inc., New York. There’s also a variant with different colors.

[More info on Discogs]

All-caps Latin Bold and all-lowercase Cheltenham Condensed, placed in circles on the cover of an album with songs of Kurt Weill, sung by by Felicia Sanders (1922–1975) and released by Time Records in 1960. Design by Murray Stein. Typography by The Composing Room, Inc.

[More info on Discogs]

Cover of the first printing of the Monster Manual for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, 1st edition, published by TSR Games in 1977. Cover design by David C. Sutherland III.

These are the original covers to the rulebooks of the 1st edition of the well known fantasy role-playing game Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. All three rulebooks have cover art done by David C. Sutherland III (1949–2005), and were published by TSR Games between 1977 (for the Monster Manual) and 1979 (for the Dungeon Masters Guide [sic]).

The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons logo uses Filmotype Quentin. This typeface had already been chosen for the original 1974 edition of the game. The titles are set in caps from Latin Bold Condensed, and smaller bits in Futura.

Cover for the first printing of the Players Handbook [sic] for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, 1st edition, published by TSR Games in 1978. Cover design by David C. Sutherland III.

Cover for the first printing of the Dungeon Masters Guide [sic] for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, 1st edition, published by TSR Games in 1979. Cover design by David C. Sutherland III.

In February 2016, a few weeks before The Four Seasons closed, I had a power lunch with Nick and Norman.

Founded in 1959, this landmark mid-century restaurant in midtown New York City was outfitted by an all-star cast of architects and designers, such as Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe, Ada Louise Huxtable, Richard Lippold, and Marie Nichols. The logo (four trees with Chisel) was designed by Emil Antonucci — his first major commission. Other branding, such as the matchbooks, paired the logotype with Latin Bold, the typeface from which Chisel was based, and Latin Wide.

Chisel was a favorite of Antonucci’s. You can see it on another of his designs in this New School profile.

This bronze sign was installed on the entrance stairs leading to Picasso alley.

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

Latin Bold, slightly extended (but not as wide as Latin Wide), for a promotion by General Electric, 1966. The copy is set in three weirdly short and narrow columns set in News Gothic. Note how all the eligible relatives are listed in both male and female variants, but the TV dealer is assumed to be a man.

Holy Batmask!
To get this all-new, all-color Batmask FREE, all you have to do is take your father or mother or aunt or uncle or grandmother or grandfather down to your participating G-E TV dealer. Hey! He’ll even show you how it flips over and turns you into Robin.
Just in time for Halloween – Only from General Electric TV dealers.

Cover for a Dixieland record by Stan Rubin & his Tigertown Five, recorded live at the Carnegie Hall on November 27, 1954, and released by RCA Victor in 1955.

The typeface is Latin Bold Condensed, which is the only member of Stephenson Blake’s Latin series to feature an H with angled crossbar. In 1939, the Bold Condensed served as the basis for making the handtooled Chisel, but this specific letterform was not carried over.

A Blonde in Love (CZ 1965) — The typeface used for the title is similar to a condensed Cheltenham/Gloucester, possibly a woodtype version. For the small sans serif, see Stephenson Blake’s Grotesque No. 6 and 8.

Various woodcut style posters for the Academy Cinema in London made by Peter Strausfeld in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. For more information visit: mikedempsey.typepad.com

Breathless (FR 1960) — The title is set in caps from Albertus, with charmingly unbalanced spacing. The bold gothic caps used for “The Academy Cinema” and elsewhere in the series exhibit qualities that have been captured in contemporary anthologies/reinterpretations like Rhode, Knockout or Champion Gothic.

Alphaville (FR 1965) — Among digital fonts, Clarendon Extra Condensed by Wooden Type Fonts is a good approximation for “Alphaville”.

A Generation (PL 1955) and Edward and Caroline (FR 1951) — The red caps appear to be from Playbill, Stephenson Blake’s reinterpretation of 19th-century “French Antique” wood type – a face that also appears on other posters of the series. Among the smaller types, there is Gill Sans Italic.

The Confrontation (HU 1969) — More Playbill, SB Grotesque, Gill Sans, condensed Clarendon and other unidentified faces. “In colour and ’scope” is in Britannic Italic. There are several digitizations, but none of them includes the italics. For the actors’ names, see The Godfather’s Haunted Lineage.

The King of Marvin Gardens (US 1972) — Big actors’ names are set in a style generically called Antique, stemming from Figgins’ Antique. Giza and Ziggurat are related digital versions. Smaller names are in caps from Windsor. The small type at the bottom is Latin Bold or similar.

AKA Wedding in Blood (FR 1973) — The generically named Egyptienne comes somewhat close for “Red Wedding”. The italic for “brilliant…” is very similar to Doric Italic No. 1.

Tonite Let’s All Make Love In London (UK 1967) and Dutchman (UK 1966) — WTC Banger from Borutta’s Wood Type Collection appears to be based on a model very similar to largest type. Unfortunately Mateusz Machalski doesn’t mention the sources of his digital interpretation.

Gingko Press:

In December 1913, Ezra Pound wrote to William Carlos Williams calling the London art/literary scene “The Vortex.” Wyndham Lewis in turn appropriated the term to christen his budding movement in the arts, “Vorticism.” Vorticism was baptized on June 20, 1914 in the first issue of BLAST, A Review of the Great English Vortex — Lewis’s revolutionary magazine. […] Described by Lewis as “violent pink,” but by some others as the “puce monster,” the large format magazine displays radical typography and design, features a “Vorticist Manifesto,” and bares eye-popping lists of items to be “Blessed” and “Blasted.”

The main typeface used for most of the manifesto part is Grotesque No. 9. The text typeface is similar to De Vinne Condensed as cast by Stephenson Blake, but it’s not a match. The (wood?) typefaces used for the title and some headings (“MANIFESTO.”, ”ENEMY OF THE STARS.”, not pictured) are yet unidentified, too. Both the framed and the roman numerals are in Latin Bold. Furthermore, there are several tertiary typefaces, like Caslon’s Atlas (for “THE EGOIST”, not pictured) in the ad section. Printed by Leveridge & Co. (T.U.), St. Thomas’ Road, Harlesden.

In Wyndham Lewis: A Critical Guide, Andrzej Gąsiorek and Nathan Waddell note:

The words are Lewis’s, but it is probable that some or all of the design was done by William Henry Leveridge, head of Leveridge & Co., who printed both numbers of BLAST. The structure BLAST / BLESS is not original, but is taken from Guillaume Apollinaire’s (possibly pastiche) Futurist manifesto L'Antitradition Futuriste: Manifeste=synthese, first published in French (dated ‘29 Juin 1913’, p. 3). This uses two antitheses, ‘Destruction’ against ‘Construction’ and 'Merde Aux’ against ‘Rose Aux’. Destruction is urged upon ‘l’harmonie typographique’ (p. 1), a hint that Lewis may have taken.

A facsimile edition was published by Gingko Press, but is currently out of stock. A pdf edition of both the first issue and the second (and final) one from July 1915 is available from the Modernist Journals Project, a joint project by Brown University and The University of Tulsa.

The title on the right was for a story about sumo wrestlers.

“Each Monday, Hans-Georg Pospischil, the art director for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazin, performs a special magic trick—in total darkness and without an audience. For the design of his weekend insert to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), a conservative daily newspaper with a 450,000 international circulation, he conjures up these award winning editorial pages.

Instead of assembling traditional layouts by hand or on the computer, he sets up Kodak slide projectors in his office where dummy paper is taped to black cardboard on the back of his door. He turns off the lights and using a zoom lens enlarges the images to the desired sizes onto the layout paper. Then he outlines the contours of the images with a pen and fills the remaining spaces with dummy text for body copy and his chosen type treatment for headlines.

…

In keeping with his philosophy of leaving well enough alone, he'll never manipulate a typeface*. ‘I do not succumb to the pressure of distorting a given type by making it taller or fatter,’ he explains. "I have too much respect for the original designers who obviously thought in great detail about how their work looks best. I leave the typeface untouched, and I only try to set it in the best possible way. This is why we use the computer. When we used to get our headlines back from the typesetters, the spacing between the letters was so horrible that we had to cut each letter apart and repaste each word over again.”

— U&lc, Vol. 20, No. 4, 1994 [PDF]

* The author was referring only to stretching type, because Pospischil did quite often modify fonts for his custom headline treatments. Three examples of this manipulation are shown here: extra dots are added to Pin Ball for film producer “Arthur Cohn”, connecting lines turn Koloss into a pseudo script for pole-vaulting Olympian “Sergei Bubka”, and Gothic Bold is trimmed judiciously to allow for some extra tight spacing in “Mazar-i Scharif”.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazin had a reputation for great design ever since it launched in 1980 with Willy Fleckhaus as art director. Pospischil was Fleckhaus’ protégé and took over when Fleckhaus died in 1983.