Identity for the 7th anniversary of studio Demande Spéciale. Optima was used for the Oods (“Office of Demande Spéciale”) logo, and a variant of Neue Montreal was used for the body text.

Celebrating seven years of visible work, even though, in truth, the studio’s practice goes back long before time itself was a concept. Whether seven years or seven centuries, the studio approach remains unchanged. Each project is a piece of a broader story, ever-evolving, a story that has always existed and will always exist beyond the boundaries of the present moment.

They explored the idea of research and archaeology, creating their own relics and assembling an archive of all their work.

“Which sounds better?” The Technics SL-2000 is a series of direct-drive turntables for the consumer market. It was produced from 1976 to 1978.

This series of adverts was issued in 1977 by Matsushita Electric / Panasonic, promoting consumer-oriented audio equipment made under their Technics brand. They pair two typefaces with flared stem endings, Albertus and Optima. Technics ads used this combination already in 1976.

The Technics RS-615US and RS-630TUS are tape decks produced in 1977 and 1978.

The Technics SL-1950 is an entry-level turntable with automatic changing function.

This one goes out to John who’s looking for more in-use examples of Daisyland.

For ages 8–80
A good beginner’s book. easy enough for children, appealing enough for adults.
Clear Project Instructions · Knotting Diagrams · Full-Color Photos

On 23 pages, the DIY book presents patterns titled Neat Knots Wallhanging, Wings of String Butterfly, Fish Story, Twice as Nice Plant Hanger, Beaded Beauty Belt, Beach or Books Tote, Jump Ropes, Message Center, Mr. Happy, Ring Around a Towel, and Pretty Hang-up.

Kids Can Macramé was edited and art directed by Mickey Baskett, with photography by Jimmy George and illustrations by Jackie Stephens. Cathy Bonds, Rose Brinkley, Michelle Menough, Carol Millsaps, and Lynn Witbeck are listed as co-authors.

All of the typefaces were available from VGC for the Photo Typositor. Daisyland – an ornamented variant of Erwin by Murray Fuchs – and Jerry Matejka’s Soul were originals by the Florida-based phototype company.

This book about Warren King’s sculpture works was created to coincide with his exhibition Homecoming at the James Watrous Gallery in Madison, Wisconsin. Designer Mark Brautigam about the work:

The book takes its cues from Warren’s process. The cover features a view of the sculpture The Road Leads Home printed on a natural paper similar to cardboard. Two essays about Warren’s background and artistic process are produced in white ink on dark red paper to separate them out from the art-specific essays. Details of sculptures interact with the text, which is framed with generous margins for readability. The back cover features an embossed cicada — a recurring element in Warren’s work.

The titles are set in Ergon Light while the running text uses a classic of humanistic typography: Optima by Hermann Zapf.

Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies. Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought was published by Basic Books in 1995. In the book,

Douglas Hofstadter and other members of the Fluid Analogies Research Group [are] exploring the mechanisms of intelligence through computer modeling. It contends that the notions of analogy and fluidity are fundamental to explain how the human mind solves problems and to create computer programs that show intelligent behavior. It analyzes several computer programs that members of the group have created over the years to solve problems that require intelligence.

For the title, the unknown jacket designer brought together two script typefaces designed by Friedrich Peter, a German-born artist who emigrated to Vancouver in 1957. The lowercase characters are from Vivaldi, “the second Latin display typeface designed in Canada” [Canadian Typography Archives], released as one of 15 award winning type face designs in a competition sponsored by VGC in 1966. The capitals are from the exuberantly ornate Magnificat, also a winner in a type design competition, this time in one that was held by Letraset in 1973. The subtitle is set in Hermann Zapf’s Optima, unfortunately with faux small caps.

The illustration is taken from the Letter Spirit project:

The aim is to model how the 26 lowercase letters of the roman alphabet can be rendered in many different but internally coherent styles. The program addresses two important aspects of letterforms: the categorical sameness possessed by letters belonging to a given category (e.g., ‘a’) and the stylistic sameness possessed by letters belonging to a given style (e.g., Helvetica). Starting with one or more seed letters representing the beginnings of a style, the program will attempt to create the rest of the alphabet in such a way that all 26 letters share that same style, or spirit.

For the friends of trivia: a copy of Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies was the first book ever sold by Amazon.com.

Detail

The New Trumpet is an album with “works for trumpet with tape and piano”, by
Peter Maxwell Davies, Lucia Dlugoszewski, William Hellermann, Gerard Schwarz, and Ursula Oppens. It was released by Nonesuch Records in 1972. The cover design is by Jo Ann Gruber, with art by Gene Szafran and art direction by Robert L. Heimall.

The typeface chosen for the title is a then recent release by Photo-Lettering. Printed in a brassy yellow, West Buggie perfectly represents the theme: not only do its bracketed serifs resemble a trumpet’s bell, the high contrast of its letterforms also echoes the thick and thin parts of the instruments. Gruber arranged the three lines so that the two initials t’s as well as the two e’s of the first and second word are aligned.

[More info on Discogs]

Detail: musicians and titles are set in LSC Condensed.

The call to action on the inner sleeve uses contoured Benguiat Charisma Script.

UNCHORUS 2023 features the practices of the twenty artists who have participated as the third cohort of the Freelands Artist Programme. It contains commissioned texts by 21 writers, poets, philosophers, artists and curators, as well as artists’ interruptions and a lexicon of artist development.

The Freelands Artist Programme was a five-year initiative (2018–2023) by the Freelands Foundation to support 80 emerging artists and strengthen professional art practices across the UK by partnering with four regional arts organisations. Artists received funding, studio time, and development support over two years, culminating in exhibitions and public engagement. The program aimed to foster local art ecosystems, build artists' networks, and retain artistic talent outside of London, UK.

The publication is designed by Studio Kristin Metho using Boogie School Sans for the cover title and chapter openers. Atlas Grotesk and Optima are used for the body copy and titles.

Full cover spread for Double Black Diamond

Double Black Diamond is a collaborative story collection by Mads Gobbo and Miles Klee. The stories are funny and fabulist, drawing influence from the pair’s shared canon of writers like Donald Barthelme, Kelly Link, Steven Millhauser, Mary Robison, Brian Evenson, Rachel Ingalls, Kathryn Davis, George Saunders, and others.

Though the stories present our world as deranged—accurately so—they are never misanthropic, always finding the humor in our abjection. Rather than try to clean up the radioactive waste, they will play in it until their third eye opens and they’re glowing green, just like the forms and fonts of the book’s cover. These mutant greens—derived from the cover art’s background, a satellite image of an algal bloom in the Baltic Sea*—emanate from the title font, Siegfried, a product of the art nouveau era that was popularized again during that style’s revival in psychedelia, and the body font, Roslindale, a chubby but angled serif, that adds an element of playful, pulp horror.

The other primary cover font is Quixley, which many will recognize as the title font of The Phantom Tollbooth. This is the other major strain coursing through the stories, a love of classic children’s literature, especially books where danger and wonder mix. In addition to their role as author, Mads Gobbo illustrated the collection, influenced by the art of Tove Jansson, Shel Silverstein, and Tim Jacobus. These artists have a talent for teasing mystery on the other side of various thresholds—fantastical beasts hiding in the shadows of a forest, an abyss of possibilities where the sidewalk ends, or a curtain of dripping slime—this lattermost image informing the alien frame around the cover text. Quixley is iconic for just this reason, signaling the toll we must pay to enter “the Lands Beyond.”

The last sources of inspiration come from a similar retrospection. Prompted by the title’s evocation of classic ski maps, the design returns to kitsch artifacts of the American midcentury. Paul Bacon’s Big Book Look informs the cover text while Milton Bradley board games, especially Chutes and Ladders, inspire the table of contents, which offer a twisting, turning path through Mads’ illustrations.

*) The image was taken by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission in 2019 and is part of the Observing the Earth database (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO license).

Interior cover and title page of Double Black Diamond

Table of contents for Double Black Diamond

Interior spread from Double Black Diamond

Cover of Volume 1 (of 2)

Parker’s description of all living organisms published in 1982 in a two-volume set by McGraw-Hill. The books cover the entire tree of life, with all organisms described in their taxonomic relation to each other and with (usually short) synopses. Lest you get too excited by the scope of this ambitious project (and it is in my opinion almost ludicrously ambitious) be forewarned that most taxa are described only down to the Family level, and of course, biology has moved on a lot since 1982. A modern equivalent is the Tree of Life web project.

The two volumes make a weighty addition to any biologist’s bookshelves.

The cover has the title foil stamped in VGC’s American Uncial Bold, and leads into a foil stamped rectangle around a depiction of a DNA molecule undergoing replication and a simplified tree of life. The volume number is from the original American Uncial.

No cover designer or typographer is mentioned specifically, but Edward J. Fox is credited as art design/production director.

Spines showing both volumes

Title page with frontispiece of Vol. 1. Names of editor and publisher are in Optima Bold. The locations use Baskerville.

Title page with frontispiece of Vol. 2. The illustrations are by Howard S. Friedman.

Covers of both volumes

Outer cover of New Paltz, New Paltz

New Paltz, New Paltz by Mike Powell is the first book published by Double Negative. It’s a restless bildungsroman set in New York City concerned with everyday life, its frustrations and joys alike. The book is short and bittersweet, inspired by poetry as much as prose, especially the frank absurdism of writers like Charles Portis and James Tate. The style is simple but wonky, full of false starts and anti-climaxes—“clumsy beauty,” the book calls it.

The design is a response to this and the many touchpoints shared by author and designer: Keith Shore’s blobby illustration, Lorraine Louie’s yuppie surrealism, Susan Kare’s iconic desktop logos, Andy Warhol’s jazz album covers, and New York City parking signs, which inform the selection of ClearviewHwy and Highway Gothic.

The colors—a dirty purple, yellow, and gray—come directly from the book’s language: the “dim yellow lighting” of a dive bar, “a purple-gray mastiff” at the dog park, and the “yellow and purple flowers” a landscape architecture firm had planted in a city park to try to rewild the city with native plans, giving it a “calculated wilderness laid out in the middle of the city, like an apology for everything we had built around it,” which of course includes the numerous grays of concretes and buildings.

Outer front cover of New Paltz, New Paltz

Interior cover spread for New Paltz, New Paltz

Interior spread for New Paltz, New Paltz

Davison Fandango’s Ornamental style, used in all caps on the cover of Edward Pearson’s fantasy novel. The Pocket Books edition came out in 1974. No cover designer credited. The illustration is by Michael Gross.

From the back cover:

Chamiel is the sweeping saga of the Revolt of the Gods, in which Zareal the Black Angel and his hosts of Evil defy the eternal edict, invoking the wrath of the Lord and the forces of Michael the Vanquisher. And in which Chamiel, messenger between unearthly kingdoms, undertakes a bold and perilous exploit on behalf of his Lord.

The legend of Chamiel is a heroic fantasy in the tradition of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, a legend set in its own worlds of Earth and Paradise—and the twilight world between.

“The writing is surely excellent; many passages have a vivid unearthliness… Exotic yet coherent imagining … bold and unusual.” —C. Day Lewis.

[More info on ISFDB]

Re’Generation was a soul/gospel touring ensemble of a cappella singers founded and led by Derric Johnson, and active from 1970 to 1983. This album from 1972 comes with a cover designed by Bob McConnell, featuring photography by Bill Grein and a bichromatic use of Swinger Shadow, designed by Ray Cruz for Schaedler. The track names in Optima Bold are arranged around the top of the bell that encloses the photograph.

[More info on Discogs]

A leaflet inspired by botanical prints, for Mallaurie Charles’ workshop dedicated to cyanotype, collage, gravure, monotype, portrait and more in Quimperlé (Bretagne, France).

Riso printed in two colors by Super Banco Riso (Brest, France).

Serge Lutens “Bell Jar” fragrance packaging (c. 1992 – c. 2000)

Serge Lutens is an iconic niche perfume house with a devoted following. The fragrance line that bears the founder’s name was born of a series of collaborations with Shiseido, a Japanese cosmetic company. After Lutens served as olfactive director for such fragrances as Nombre Noir (1982) and Féminité du Bois (1992), Shiseido opened Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido to sell his fragrance creations in a Parisian boutique.

Over the years, the specific branding of these fragrances has transformed as the Serge Lutens brand gradually replaced the Shiseido labeling. The fragrances themselves remained consistent.

There have been two major revisions to primary and secondary packaging for a total of three distinct presentations. The initial packaging featured a color scheme of ivory and two shades of violet. The details on the box and label featured Shiseido, the brand’s corporate typeface with the distinctive S glyph for any occurrences of this letter in the fragrance’s name and Palais Royal Shiseido Paris. The volume declaration uses Optima, partly with stretched proportions.

The first revision occurred c. 2000 and introduced a major redesign. The color scheme was switched to black, ivory and grey and Serge Lutens’ name appeared on the packaging along with a stylized rendering of the façade of Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido. All text on the packaging is rendered in Cochin. Again, the scaling of glyphs in the volume declaration has been adjusted; in this presentation, the horizontal scale is set at 50%.

The second revision occurred in 2010. Compared to the previous revision, this revision is less dramatic. This version also features the most typographic variety. The color scheme was adjusted and elements that had previously been ivory have been changed to a light violet. Serge Lutens is rendered in Nicolas Cochin. The fragrance name is rendered in Caslon Openface (Bitstream’s version). As there is no italic or oblique version of this typeface, the glyphs have been sheared at approximately 15 degrees to simulate italics. The rendering of the Palais Royal Shiseido has been replaced with a stylized rendering of Serge Lutens’ initials. The text below this logo reading “Paris” is rendered in Nicolas Cochin. The fragrance concentration and volume disclosure remain as they were in the previous design, rendered in Cochin with the scaling of glyphs in the volume declaration still adjusted to a horizontal scale of 50%.

Serge Lutens “Bell Jar” fragrance packaging (c. 2000–2010)

Serge Lutens “Bell Jar” fragrance packaging (2010–)

One Tree Hill was an American TV series about two half-brothers, their rivalry, and their love for basketball. The show ran for nine seasons from 2003 to 2012.

The opening credits were designed using ITC Binary for the actors' first names and Impact for their last names, all in lowercase letters. These two fonts were also used to create the show’s logo, with the three words alternating between Impact and ITC Binary. The bold version of Optima was used in all other credits as well as in the end credits.

Not all seasons included opening credits, so the creators of the show designed only a title card where all the words of the logo were written in Impact with the text appearing distressed or damaged.

Season Four’s opening credits.

Title card of the show for the seasons which did not include opening credits.

Example of cast credit from season which did not include opening credits.

This Vivaldi album was recorded in Venice’s Basilica di San Marco, performed by the chorus and orchestra of the Teatro La Fenice. The cover image has a depiction of the church that’s more than half a millenium old: it’s a detail from Procession of the True Cross in Piazza San Marco, painted in 1496 by Gentile Bellini. 182 years later, in 1678, Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice.

The title typeface looks like it might date from the 14th or 15th century, but it’s not quite that old: conceived by Herman Ihlenburg, Filigree was patented in 1878 for MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan in Philadelphia. It was also available in Italy, from Nebiolo in Turin, under the name Caretteri Filigrana.

The specific font in use probably is the phototype adaptation made by Headliners and shown in 1964 as part of their Morgan Press Collection. The ornamented bifurcated caps were separated from the groundwork, for a two-color printing.

The second typeface on the front cover is the Bold weight of ATF Garamond (1920), Morris F. Benton’s interpretation of the types cut by Jean Jannon in France in the 1600s – a Renaissance typeface, but stylistically more than a century removed from the types used by Nicholas Jenson in Venice.

Text on the back is set in Optima. Hermann Zapf’s 1950s design was inspired by lettering he spotted on 15th-century tombstones in the cemetery of an Italian church – not St Mark’s in Venice, but the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence.

[More info on Discogs]

Detail showing the two-color setting of Filigree

My sister was photographed for the packaging of this fun little children’s toy made by Brazilian brand Grow in the 1980s. Octopuss by Colin Brignall is the titling face, with Cooper Black Italic for subhead and Optima Bold in right-aligned setting.

The overlaps in Octopuss’s S, g and d are certainly part of the decision for making this toy lock meet a Las Vegas slot machine. Sure brings me back to old times.

The Swingle Singers were a French a capella group originally formed in 1962 in Paris under the leadership of Ward Swingle. Released in France under the title Concerto d’Aranjuez – Sounds of Spain, this is the cover of the North American release. It features a human figure made from pieces of geometric patterns.

The swashy typeface is Bookman Swash Bold Italic a.k.a. “Sixties Bookman”. It’s used with several of its key features, like the “The” catchword with the overlapping “Th” pair that was carried over from ATF’s original Bookman Oldstyle, or the sweeping w that here swallows the dot on the subsequent i. The M with swash extensions on three of its terminals is a form not commonly found in the glyph repertoire of Bookman Bold Swash. The uncredited designer probably took the curlicue from another glyph and transplanted it onto the right stem of the M.

[More info on Discogs]

Detail

According to Wikipedia, 101 Strings Orchestra “was the brand for a highly successful easy listening symphonic music organization, with a discography exceeding 150 albums”, selling “more than 50,000,000 records worldwide”. This album with easy listening interpretations of movie themes was released in 1972 by Alshire Records, an US budget label founded by Al Sherman.

The main typeface is Richard D. Juenger’s Jana, used mostly in all caps. “MOVIES” and the name of arranger and conductor Jack Dorsey are added in Optima. The informal script is Filmotype Korea. The 101 Strings logo is either custom calligraphy or based on an unidentified formal script.

[More info on Discogs]

This is the second and last studio album by the Japanese fusion band Space Circus. Tsunehisa Kimura created the artwork cover for the front and back, which is titled Divine Retribution and Earth Fantasy. Both artworks are currently in the collection of the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum.

The album title is set in an extra compressed variant of Helvetica Compressed [edit: or rather Schmalfette Grotesk, see comments], while the band's name is set in Neo Script.

The track titles on the back cover are set in a bold weight of Futura, while the track numbers, song credits, and staff credits are set in Optima. The Japanese sans serif typeface on the bottom left and the serif typeface on the bottom right are Ishii Gothic (石井ゴシック) and Ishii Mincho (石井明朝).

[More info on Discogs]