The standard album cover for The Normal Album.

Pictured is Musician Will Wood leaning out of a window waving, surrounded by a black border on a retro zig-zag line image pattern design reminiscent of the 1950s. “Will Wood” and “The Normal Album” are displayed in URW Antiqua, and the pink promotional sticker's slogan displayed in a modified version of New York. The sticker reads “INCLUDES THE HIT SINGLE ‘LOVE, ME NORMALLY!’ AND MORE NEW, ORIGINAL SONGS!”

The Normal Album is Will Wood’s third studio album, released July 10th, 2020. The album’s genres range from ska, punk, jazz, cabaret, surf rock, pop, and even doo-wop. The track “I / Me / Myself” is Will's most streamed song, after it went viral on TikTok and exponentially grew his popularity.

The Normal Album got a new mix after parting with one of the original album’s main producers. The new mix, The New Normal!, included three extra 2018 demo tracks, and a remaster of every song, each now paired with a sillier version of their original titles, except for the track “Love, Me Normally”. The New Normal! was released on August 9th, 2024.

The covers for The Normal Album and The New Normal! display both Will’s name and the album’s title in Georgia. Both album versions include a sticker in the bottom left corner with a silly commercial slogan saying various messages depending on the version.

The Normal Album has only had one version of the sticker on its album art, with the message “INCLUDES THE HIT SINGLE ‘LOVE, ME NORMALLY!’ AND MORE NEW, ORIGINAL SONGS!” displayed in stretched Sitka.

The New Normal! has had many different album covers, plausibly depending on the type of media it’s consumed through. It and the very elusive 2023 Edit use Times New Roman for their slogans.

Artwork by Angelica Pasquali and Mike Diebold.

[More info on Discogs]

The album cover for The Normal Album (2023 Edit).

This album cover is the same as the original, except for the central image of Will being titled at an angle, and the promotional sticker is now green and displayed in Times New Roman. The promotional message reads “~ NEW ~ MODERN STEREO MIX! *2023 EDIT*”

The standard album cover for The New Normal!

The album cover is very similar to the original The Normal Album cover art. Instead of Will waving, his arms are spread open as if to welcome a guest. The zig-zag pattern background has been hue-shifted to look green and yellow instead of pink and blue. And the sticker in the bottom left corner is a bright purple instead of pink. The promotional sticker reads “~13~ MOOD-SWINGIN’ TUNES & EMOTIONAL OUTBURSTS! ~NOW WITH~ 400% MORE HINDSIGHT!”

Another The New Normal! Album cover found through Apple Music.

Will Wood rests one elbow on the banister, holding his fist to his chin, while his other arm rests out the window as looks out the window longingly. The promotional sticker reads “NOW IN STEREO! ~ plus ~ 33% MORE ‘CONTENT!’”

Another The New Normal! Album cover found through Deezer.

Will grasps the window banister and holds his other hand flat to his forehead, perhaps trying to see something in the distance. The promotional sticker reads “NOW IN RECOVERY! ~ plus ~ THREE BONUS DIAGNOSES!”

The album jacket for the tour exclusive vinyl pressing of The New Normal! / 2023 Edit. This is also known as the “worst edition” because they had to rush production for the tour according to reddit user u/AutumnnMay

The zig-zag background is hue shifted to look blue, green, and purple. The space where the type for “The Normal Album” is has a very tiny “2023-2024 Mix” squished right beneath it, also in Georgia. The promotional sticker is now salmon colored, and displayed in Superclarendon. The promotional sticker reads “*100% GENUINE WORST EDITION PRESSING! ~RARE!~”

New typefaces are like a cold lake. Few people are inclined to jump in there right away.

Some typefaces even seem to be like a frozen lake. Sitka, designed by Matthew Carter and produced by John Hudson and Ross Mills from Tiro Typeworks, was released in 2013. As part of Microsoft Windows since its 8.1 version and of some versions of Microsoft Office, it has been readily available to a large public for several years.

But until the day that I took this picture, I had never seen it in use. (Or maybe I had seen it, but I hadn’t noticed it at any rate.) I didn’t take this picture because it is a spectacular use of the typeface. I took it because there is a use of Sitka at long last (outside promotional materials by Microsoft). There is nothing wrong with this sign – but it’s just a sign, basically.

Sitka is a typeface that comes in various optical sizes – six, to be precise. Optical sizes are variants of a typeface design that are optimised for a specific size (e.g., a variant with exaggerated features and inktraps for small sizes or a variant with higher contrast and sharp details for display use – the specifics may vary). If we go strictly by its measurements, this sign would fall in the largest category of any range of optical sizes. For Sitka, that would be ‘Banner’ – but the variant that was used for this sign is on the opposite end of the spectrum. What we see is Sitka Small, intended for use below 9.7 points.

It is not unusual to see small optical sizes used for large type sizes. The best ones look great both in a telephone directory and on a billboard. Also, when we factor in viewing distance, large isn’t always that large. On the sign above, the Banner version of Sitka probably would have done a decent job, too, but the Small version doesn’t produce a jarring effect.

“Reading View is a new feature in IE11 that provides a focused reading experience for text-heavy pages, such as news articles and blog posts.” — Microsoft, Internet Explorer Test Drive

“IE 11 reading view takes advantage of a brand new font for Windows 8.1, called Sitka. It was developed for Microsoft by Mathew Carter, in collaboration with the Advanced Reading Technologies team that previously developed Clear Type text rendering to work well for online reading as well as in print.

One of the advantages of the Sitka font comes from the optical scaling addressed by its different weights. Research has shown that different letter spacing, stroke sizes, and x-height can have a positive effect on the readability of different sizes of text. An optical family contains styles specifically optimized for each size and use case – rather than trying to be one-size-fits-all, like many of the typefaces common on the Web. Thus, you can get terrific legibility in text, and style in display sizes, all with the same family. Reading view for example uses Sitka Small, which is designed with thicker strokes, larger x-height, and looser letter spacing, for image captions, and Sitka Banner, designed with thinner strokes and tighter letter spacing, for the article titles.

Sitka was also the first typeface family designed with scientific legibility studies integrated directly into the design process. Most fonts do not undergo legibility studies. Those few that do are studied after the font is nearly done. Sitka, however, was repeatedly tested throughout the design process.” — IEBlog