Aldiviva is the typeface used for the name of Sassy009.World, the website of Oslo-based musician Sunniva Lingård a.k.a. Sassy 009. Additional fonts that appear on the homepage include Eurostile for “Sassy Chat”, Druk Wide for “Blue Racecar”, and Carlista Buttery for “Here Comes The Weekend”. “Heart Ego” combines stretched Helvetica Inserat or similar with Signerica, and “Mystery Boy” remains mysterious for now. Text and UI elements use Neue Haas Grotesk and TWK Everett Mono.

A striking print ad for the Dick Smith CAT, published in the May 1984 release of the magazine Electronics Australia. The Dick Smith CAT was an Apple II clone created by retailer Dick Smith, a chain of Australian electronics retail stores.

The headline “Only $699!” uses Helvetica Inserat, catching the viewer’s eye with bright red, emboldened text that leaps out from the page. Helvetica Inserat was designed by Arthur Ritzel and was first released in 1966 or 1969 by Stempel.

The slogan “Our CAT eats Apples!” uses Times New Roman. Times New Roman was designed by Stanley Morison and Victor Lardent, and was first released in 1931 by Monotype.

The mail-in information header and form use Helvetica. Helvetica was designed by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann, and was first released in 1957 by Haas under the name Neue Haas Grotesk.

From Wikipedia:

The Humanoids is a 1949 dystopian science fiction novel by American author Jack Williamson (1908–2006). Originally published as a three-part serial called “…And Searching Mind” in Astounding Science-Fiction (March, April, May 1948), it was in fact a sequel to an earlier novelette, “With Folded Hands…”, appearing in the same magazine in July of the previous year of 1947. The Humanoids was published as a hardback book in 1949, but only in 1980 was the award-winning “With Folded Hands…” included in a reissue edition of The Humanoids.

This reissue edition by Nelson Doubleday comes in a jacket with art by Tony Fiyalko. The uncredited designer (perhaps John Lisco?) specified a typeface that was ninety years old at the time: it’s Algonquin by the Dickinson Type Foundry. An advert in the Inland Printer from October 1890 mentions that “Algonquin and Algonquin Ornamented are effectively used when printed in two colors, one over the other.” That’s exactly what the jacket designer did here. They likely didn’t tinker with registering the output of two fonts, and simply gave the open style a yellow color fill instead.

[More info on Discogs]

The Saddest Summer of Samuel S is a novella by American-Irish author J.P. Donleavy (1926–2017), first published by Delacorte Press, New York, in 1966. Harry Willock provided the typographic cover design for the British paperback edition from 1968 ( Penguin Books 2832) shown here, featuring contoured caps from Cooper Black, filled with a rainbow gradient.

Australian One Sheet (27″×40″), Roadshow

Bordering on LTypI: Filmotype Quick for Death Race 2000.

In the year 2000 hit and run driving is no longer a felony. It’s the national sport!

The dystopian science fiction action film from 1975 starring David Carradine, Sylvester Stallone, and Simone Griffeth was produced by Roger Corman and directed by Paul Bartel. The poster and the lobby cards shown here were produced by Australian distributor Roadshow.

On the poster, Quick is paired with various gothics. Judging from the small counters, the screened letterforms for David Carradine’s name might be from Quick with the inline filled in.

Australian lobby card set (11″×14″). The tagline is set in caps from Helvetica schmalfett (or maybe Helvetica Inserat).

Australian lobby card (11″×14″), Roadshow

The June 1977 issue, featuring ITC Souvenir Medium contrasted with Orator (IBM) as its secondary typefaces.

Class Struggle was a publication by the Irish Workers Group that focused on political issues from a socialist point of view. Shown here is the run from the first to seventh issues; the subsequent issues switched to a Balloon and Flash-based layout.

The name of the publication is the compressed Compacta Light, with the Irish Workers Group logo set in Kabel Black. The accompanying typefaces depend on the individual issues, many of which were available from Letraset at the time.

The first issue uses ITC Souvenir Medium and Orator (IBM).

The November 1977 issue. ITC Souvenir Medium, Clarendon Medium, and an outlined version of Egyptienne Bold Condensed are the secondary typefaces.

The May 1978 issue stands out by using three colors: red, white, and black. Here, Kabel Black is brought to the forefront and is accompanied by ITC Souvenir Medium and Optima Bold.

The Spring 1979 issue. The outlined version of Egyptienne Bold Condensed is paired with Univers 75 and Optima Bold, with the date and price set in ITC Souvenir Medium.

The Summer 1979 issue, which features the bold weight of Compacta, Futura Bold (and Futura Condensed Bold, with wonky t’s that were likely repurposed from a different letter), Optima Bold, and Univers 75.

The November 1979 issue, featuring Futura Condensed Bold, Compacta Bold, Univers 75, and Helvetica Inserat.

The June–September 1980 issue. The cover features ITC Clearface Heavy, Windsor, Helvetica (in addition to an outlined version of the same face), and Univers 75 for the price.

Food for Thought is the name of the second album by The J.B.’s, being released in 1972 by People Records, which was a subsidiary of Polydor. It features the singles “Pass the Peas” and “Gimme Some More”.

The design of the album utilizes a fully typographic approach: the title uses what appears to be Helvetica Inserat, which is contrasted with Ludlow’s Stencil, Weiss Extra Bold, and various different styles of Helvetica. News Gothic can also be seen on the back.

[More info on Discogs]

Slipcase with all 14 books

Between 1925 and 1930, the Bauhaus published a series of 14 books, authored by teachers and friends of the legendary design school. The titles discussed the ideas of the Bauhaus in art, design and architecture. In response to the Bauhaus Centennial in 2019, all 14 Bauhausbücher were re-issued in 2021 by Lars Müller Publishers in collaboration with Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung in a English translation, preserving the original typography and design.

The digital re-issue required the use of digital revivals of the original typefaces used – four of those books utilise LD Genzsch Antiqua by Michael Wörgötter / Lazydogs as their main text face: Book 10 Dutch Architecture by Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud, Book 11 The Non-Objective World by Kasimir Malevich, Book 13 Cubism by Albert Gleizes, and Book 14 From Material to Architecture by László Moholy-Nagy. The typeface’s original features such as the historical hyphen and the em dash enable a redesign true to the original publication.

Book jacket of Dutch Architecture feat. Akzidenz-Grotesk fett

Pages 26–27 from Dutch Architecture feat. LD Genzsch Antiqua and Akzidenz-Grotesk. The caption uses an unidentified font, see comments.

Pages 28–29 from Dutch Architecture feat. LD Genzsch Antiqua and Akzidenz-Grotesk

Book jacket of Cubism with the English title added in Helvetica Inserat or similar, see comments

Pages 84–85 from Dutch Architecture feat. LD Genzsch Antiqua and Akzidenz-Grotesk

Double-page spread from Cubism feat. LD Genzsch Antiqua and what looks like Helvetica Extended

Pages 84–85 from Cubism feat. LD Genzsch Antiqua and Helvetica. Page numbers appear to be from Akzidenz-Grotesk Super.

Book jacket of From Material to Architecture, with the English title added in what looks like Akzidenz-Grotesk Bold

Pages 92–93 from From Material to Architecture feat. LD Genzsch Antiqua and Akzidenz-Grotesk (in Bold and Super weights)

Pages 96–97 from From Material to Architecture feat. LD Genzsch Antiqua and Akzidenz-Grotesk. The caption on the right is set in a digitization of Neue Moderne Grotesk, with the paragraph below in Volta.

Source: fr.shopping.rakuten.com License: All Rights Reserved.

#1, Percy Sledge – “When A Man Loves A Woman” / “Love Me Tender”

Série Chouchou is the name of a French series of 7″ records with songs by artists from Warner, Reprise, Elektra, Atlantic, and Chrysalis, distributed by WEA. Between 1973 and 1975, a total of thirty records were released, with musical styles ranging from soul (Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding) and rock ’n’ roll (Fats Domino) to hard rock (Iron Butterfly, Alice Cooper).

Graphicolor in Nanterre printed each sleeve in two colors, with some releases being made available in alternative color variants. The artist/band name is always set in all caps, and the song titles (mostly) in all lowercase characters.

The typeface may look familiar, and yet this is the first time we feature it on Fonts In Use. Its name is Roc. Designer Albert Boton drew it for French phototype company Hollenstein. I don’t know when exactly Roc was made. The earliest showing I’m aware of is as Hollenstein Roc in a Photo-Lettering brochure from 1964. In 1963, British dry transfer manufacturer Letraset released Compacta. It seems likely that the folks at Hollenstein saw Compacta and asked Boton to come up something similar for phototypesetting. But maybe it’s the other way around and Roc came first?

In any case, such a tight-setting bold condensed sans was very much in vogue at the time: Schmalfette Grotesk started to become popular in the late 1950s, and other manufacturers responded to the trend: Haas and Weber revamped their old designs as Inserat-Grotesk and Neue Aurora VIII, respectively. Ludwig & Mayer issued Permanent Headline in 1964, Stephenson Blake brought out Impact in 1965, and Mergenthaler Linotype followed up with Helvetica Compressed in 1966.

Comparison: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

Roc (top; here Photoscript’s version named “Ascona Grotesk (Roc)” from a 1965 catalog, scan courtesy of Stephen Coles, CC BY-NC-SA) compared to Compacta (bottom; here Bitstream’s digitization with decreased tracking)

Roc and Compacta are similar, but there are also a couple of differences, see for example the modulation in A M N V W. The construction of several of Roc’s glyphs like a g y G Q is closer to that of Univers (1957/1958). No surprise: Boton started his career at Deberny & Peignot, working under Frutiger.

Roc wasn’t kept exclusive to Hollenstein in Paris. In addition to Photo-Lettering in New York, it was also carried by Photoscript in London, where it went under the name Ascona Grotesk (Roc). By 1974, Hollenstein had the design extended to six styles; maigre (caps only), normal, italique, noir, noir italique, and noir coupé (stencil). It did fairly well for a while, but due to its limited availability, the design fell into oblivion and became overshadowed by Compacta. To my knowledge, Roc was never digitized.

The Série Chouchou logo features caps from Normande, set on a circle. The number is in Helvetica Bold for the first few releases, changing to the more compact Helvetica Inserat (or Helvetica schmalfett?) for two-digit numbers.

[More info on Discogs]

Posted as part of a series that pays tribute to Albert Boton, one of the preeminent French type designers of the past sixty years. Albert Boton died on July 20, 2023, at the age of 91.

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

#2, Jethro Tull – “Bourée” / “Locomotive Breath”

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

#3, Sonny & Cher – “I Got You Babe” / “The Beat Goes On”

Source: www.ebay.com spacedream55 (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

#4, Delaney & Bonnie – “Miss Ann” / “Free the People”

Source: www.ebay.com spacedream55 (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

#4, back cover

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

#5, Wilson Pickett – “In The Midnight Hour” / “Land Of 1000 Dances”

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

#6, Otis Redding – “Satisfaction” / “Respect”

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

#7, Ray Charles – “What I’d Say” / “Hallelujah, I Love Her So”

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

#8, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – “Woodstock” / “Carry On”

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

#9, Aretha Franklin – “Respect” / “I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)”. The wide light sans is Univers 33, see also #19.

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

#10, Vanilla Fudge – “You Keep Me Hanging’ [sic!] On, Part 1 / Part 2”

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

#11, Iron Butterfly – “In A Gadda Da Vida” / “[In] Iron Butterfly Theme”

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

#12, Graham Nash – “Chicago” / “Military Madness”

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

#13, Bread – “Baby I’m A Want You” / “The Guitar Man”

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

#14, The Doors – “Light My Fire” / “Hello, I Love You”

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

#15, Norman Greenbaum – “Spirit In The Sky” / “Canned Ham”

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

#16, Routers – “Let’s Go” / “Mashy”. The second song name is added in Helvetica Bold.

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

#17, Alice Cooper – “School’s Out” / “Elected”

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

#19, Peter, Paul & Mary – “Blowing In The Wind” / “If I Had A Hammer (The Hammer Song)”. The wide light sans is Univers 33, se also #9.

Source: www.ebay.com laure-thier (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

#18, The Everly Brothers – “Cathy’s Clown” / “Lucille”

Source: fr.shopping.rakuten.com License: All Rights Reserved.

#20, Myriam Makeba – “Pata Pata” / “Malayisha”

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

#21, Otis Redding – “(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay” / “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”

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

#22, Fats Domino – “Lady Madonna” / “I’m Ready”

Source: www.ebay.fr sid75_fr (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

#23, The Bar-Kays – “Soul Finger” / “Knucklehead”

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

#24, Sam & Dave – “Hold On, I’m Coming” / “Soul Man”

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

#25, Ben E. King – “Stand By Me” / “Spanish Harlem”

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

#26, Booker T & The MG’s – “Green Onions” / “Get Ready”

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

#27, Arthur Conley – “Sweet Soul Music” / “Funky Street”

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

#28, Percy Sledge – “Warm And Tender Love” / “My Special Prayer”

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

#29, King Curtis – “Memphis Soul Stew” / “Teasin’”

Source: fr.shopping.rakuten.com License: All Rights Reserved.

#30, Wilson Pickett – “Funky Broadway” / “Mustang Sally”

One Sheet poster (27″×41″)

From Wikipedia:

In the Heat of the Night is a 1967 American neo-noir mystery drama film directed by Norman Jewison. It is based on John Ball’s 1965 novel of the same name and tells the story of Virgil Tibbs, a Black police detective from Philadelphia, who becomes involved in a murder investigation in a small town in Mississippi. It stars Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, and was produced by Walter Mirisch. The screenplay was written by Stirling Silliphant.

The film title is based on Allen Cubist. This typeface was drawn by John S. Allen and shown by Photo-Lettering in 1965, together with a seriffed version named Abstract. Cubist is here used in green capitals, with tight letterspacing. Several letter pairs share a stem and form (custom?) ligatures. The wordmark exhibits three “bullet holes” from which concentric circles emanate. It is enclosed in so-called sign painters’ quotes.

The tagline reads “They got a murder on their hands. They don’t know what to do with it.” It appears to be set in Ad Lib. Like Cubist, Ad Lib has inconsistent, “jumping” stroke widths in glyphs where verticals meet horizontals, like A B F E H P R T. Ad Lib was designed by Freeman Craw – allegedly inspired by Harold Adler’s lettering for the 1958 film Bonjour Tristesse – and released by ATF as foundry type in 1961. On closer look, the letterforms on the poster for In the Heat of the Night are not only narrower than in Ad Lib, but also different in details like the angle of counters and terminals. They are either custom drawn, based on Ad Lib. Or they come from an unknown phototype adaptation. Repeating glyphs appear to be identical [edit: it is a phototype adaptation: Filmotype Pioneer].

On the U.S. posters, the names of Poitier and Steiger are shown in Akzidenz-Grotesk Bold Condensed, with most other information in News Gothic Condensed.

The movie logo, isolated

Half Sheet poster (22″×28″)

Spanish One Sheet poster (27.5″×39.5″) by Gráficas Bobes, Barcelona. The translated title here is lettering, emulating the the original wordmark. The names of the leading actors are set in Helvetica Inserat. Smaller text uses regular-wide Akzidenz-Grotesk.

This Australian One Sheet poster (27″×40″) appears to be entirely hand-lettered. It was printed by Robert Burton Pty Ltd, Sydney.

One Sheet (27″×41″) poster

Eightway is so named because it was drawn with eight different shadow directions – North, Northeast, East, Southeast, South, etc. The movie logo for Cotton Comes to Harlem, a 1970 American neo-noir action comedy thriller, alternates between the Shaded Northeast and Northwest styles, creating an oscillating perspective effect.

The posters for the blaxploitation movie directed by Ossie Davis and produced by Samuel Goldwyn Jr. additionally feature another shaded all-caps grotesque from the Photo-Lettering catalog: the names of “Coffin Ed” (Raymond St. Jacques) and “Gravedigger” (Godfrey Cambridge) are set in Davison Display. They are enclosed by text in Helvetica Inserat, also known in digital form as Swiss 921 and Nimbus Sans Condensed Black. Venus Light Condensed is used for the credit block.

Half Sheet (22″×28″) poster

Lobby card set of 8 (11″×14″)

The original motion picture score composed by Galt MacDermot was originally released by United Artists Records. Eightway is here filled with pink and supported by Folio. Art direction by Frank Gauna. The image shown here is a later re-release by MCA Records (1986) with a largely identical design, signed by Robert McGinnis. [More info on Discogs]

Back cover of the soundtrack album, with the track names and credits in Helvetica

The Last of Us is a HBO TV show based on the eponymous cult game released by Sony in 2013. It tells the story of a hardened survivor and teenage girl after a global pandemic destroys civilization.

Title sequences were created by American studio Elastic. The official font of the show and game is Press Gothic by Canada Type. From their website:

Press Gothic Pro is a retooling and major expansion of Aldo Novarese's Metropol typeface, released by Nebiolo in 1967 as a competitor to Stephenson Blake's Impact (designed by Geoffrey Lee). Though Metropol enjoyed a few short months of popularity and use in Italy, Germany and France, Impact won the technological outlasting battle by moving on to film type then to computer outlines bundled with mainstream software, while Metropol never made it past the metal state until now. Too bad really, since this is one of the few faces that could have played well with all the horrendous stretch’n’squeezing of the 1970s.

Press Gothic is paired with various other sans serifs. In the poster shown above, it’s Jay Gothic and HBO Max’s standard Gilroy. The poster shown below has Helvetica Inserat and Neue Plak Compressed for the date. The titles feature Tungsten with Avenir.

Empellon Al Pastor is a cool dive bar / restaurant concept located in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan. I was tasked with creating a new logotype and a total rebrand of the business from the ground up. Given that Al Pastor is located in the former epicenter of punk rock music in New York City (right on St. Mark’s Place across from Tompkins Square Park) I chose to deliver a concept that focused on the raw and edgy aesthetic of punk rock typography, zines and fliers. I created a 26 page digital deck offering up my vision as well as an assortment of logotype treatments and visual examples.

Once this was approved by owner Alex Stupak I proceeded to craft the rest of the assets including menus, signage, posters, stickers, apparel and anything that required a graphic or a design. Alex is a longtime fan of metal music as well, so I made sure to incorporate elements of that in the rebrand.

I did a lot of research for the project looking at archives of punk rock show fliers and ephemera from years past. Obviously given the freeform nature of the visual aesthetic and language it was an incredibly fun opportunity for me to break most traditional design rules and just sort of have a go at it. This meant lots of great fonts and lots of heavy distressing and grunge. The typeface selection for this project is seemingly endless, including some type that has not been featured on this website before, like Swiss Grit (Rafael Nascimento), Spacedock Stencil (Cumberland Fontworks), Mersey Cowboy (Chequered Ink) and Timber Wolf (Rook Design Supply).

The “empellón” wordmark is custom drawn.

A Clearasil advertisement from the 90s, with the copy set in all caps on a spiral:

Everything’s out of whack, completely off kilter. Evil blackhead armies erupt without warning, take me as hostage, then laugh even harder and multiply. Well die, you zombie zit invaders, die, because I have a secret weapon which is mightier than you which cleans way down deep with more killer stuff than the number one pad to blast you into the next galaxy and which is fact is this wicked little pad from Clearasil®.

The main typeface used here is FF Dolores, the first published typeface design by Tobias Frere-Jones. It can be seen in at least two of its five weights. A couple of different fonts are used to highlight certain words: “blast” and “die” are set in Joe Perry, Mike Allard’s compressed digitization of Quaint Roman. “More killer stuff” is in Kurt Russell, another 1990s shareware font by Allard’s DeNada Industries. “Hostage” uses Filmotype Accent, “mightier” is in Goudy Heavyface, “galaxy” in Helvetica Inserat, and “wicked” in Schwarz. Last but not least, “Clearasil” is set in Antique Olive.

ALBERT MERTZ
LAWRENCE WEINER

RED
AS WELL AS GREEN
AS WELL AS YELLOW
AS WELL AS BLUE

This poster from 1983 for an exhibition showing works of Albert Mertz and Lawrence Weiner was designed by the latter, and printed by Pernild & Rosengreen. Weiner used Helvetica Inserat for most information; “Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum” is set in Clarendon.

Judith Ammann, 1987, Matta-Clark – Mucha – Kunsthalle Basel, silkscreen, 128×90.5 cm.

Between 1982 and 1988, Judith Ammann (*1954) was responsible for the graphic design of the Kunsthalle Basel. Ammann had studied between 1970 and 1976 in Lucerne under Hans-Rudolf Lutz. For the Kunsthalle’s exhibition posters, she introduced a consistently serial design using exclusively Hevetica Inserat.

Judith Ammann, 1988, Hopper – Balkenhol – Mäkelä – Kunsthalle Basel, silkscreen, 128×90.5 cm.

Judith Ammann, 1985, Von Twombly bis Clemente – Kunsthalle Basel, silkscreen, 128×90.5 cm.

Pluto Half-Solid used for the brand name on a box of Borrometi coarse sea salt from Sicily, Italy. As Pluto is not available in digital form, the actual font in use is probably K22 Lucifer No. 1, a freebie digitization of based on the Lettergraphics copy named Lucifer No. 1 as shown in Homage to the Alphabets.

The website address at the bottom is set in Cooper Black while the words “sale marino” and “grosso” seem to utilize Helvetica Inserat or something similar. The remaining text seems to use slightly stretched Helvetica.

Rosmarie Tissi’s Sinaloa is prominently featured in two Me Portraits made by Ashley Bickerton (b. 1959) in 1987. The artist didn’t make direct use of Letraset’s rub-down type. Instead, Bickerton recreated the letterforms with small deviations from the original, e.g. W is wider, S is more compact, G has a smaller aperture. Most strikingly, the number of Sinaloa’s characteristic stripes was reduced in some letters. The secondary type looks like Helvetica Inserat or similar.

The mixed-media installations use acrylic, aniline dye, bronzing powder and lacquer on plywood with anodised aluminium and steel cables. In 2017, they were shown in the Ornamental Hysteria exhibition at the Newport Street Gallery, London.

Friederike von Hellermann is a book artist who works from Halle (Saale), Germany. On 3 February 2020 she gave a lecture about book art and the haptic experience in times of e-books at Basics 19/20 (UdK Berlin).

The posters were letterpress-printed using Prestige and a selection of more familiar typefaces from the twentieth century: Akzidenz-Grotesk, Helvetica, Amsterdamer Garamont and geometric shapes taken from the well-known Futura Schmuck.

Poster for the Fifth Spring Rally in May 1974, organised by La Traction Universelle and L’Auto ancienne d’Alsace. This edition titled “L’Alsace et ses environs” marked the 40th anniversary of the Citroën Traction Avant which was first produced in 1934.

All white-on-blue text features Pump Bold (1970). “1934-1974” uses Annonce, “40me Anniversaire” shows caps from Helvetica Inserat. The small print with credits is set in Folio.