Potatoes, to Know Potatoes, and to Serve Potatoes, by Ernest Oldmeadow

Two wartime booklets issued by the Wine and Food Society in London that try to make the humble spud a bit more up-market, potentially for members of the Society who may well have been used to more up-market fare! There is also a hint that it was may also have been aimed at people who were used to having food prepared for them rather than in wartime conditions when they may have had to fend for themselves and indeed a few of the Ministry of Food's publications of this time were aimed at people who may have lost servants and cooks!

The opening to Soups Salads Souses includes the phrase “wartime fare for the fastidious” and it was written by the doyenne of the Society, André Simon, along with forewords by Eugéne Herbodeau and postscript by Jessop Hulton.

The cover design is quite stylish and well-constructed and I wondered who designed the wee vignette. And thanks to Alan Brignull's detective work (on the Soup’s cover) it can be confirmed as being by Berthold Wolpe. The printer was the famous Curwen Press.

The open and shaded caps are from Orplid, a typeface design by Hans Bohn who had studied at the Technische Lehranstalten Offenbach, just like Wolpe.

Soups Salads Souses by André L. Simon

From Wikipedia:

Ramón “Mongo” Santamaría Rodríguez (April 7, 1917 – February 1, 2003) was a Cuban percussionist and bandleader who spent most of his career in the United States. Primarily a conga drummer, Santamaría was a leading figure in the pachanga and boogaloo dance crazes of the 1960s. His biggest hit was his rendition of Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man”, which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. From the 1970s, he recorded mainly salsa and Latin jazz, before retiring in the late 1990s.

For this 1971 album on Atlantic Records, designer Stanisław Zagórski used a title typeface that was added to Photo-Lettering’s library just a year earlier: it’s Norman Green’s Buzzard. Zagórski specified the (relatively) simplified A style. Its letterforms are shown in reverse, with white parts printed in black, and black parts colored in yellow, orange, and pink.

Photography by Jim Cummins.

[More info on Discogs]

On the back cover, Orplid is also shown in reverse. It’s used alongside Vogue with its Futura-style alternates. The “MONGO” sign in the photo is in Matura.

“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.

Tenor Banjo Chords in Photo-Diagram Form. The informal script for “Mel Bay” is unidentified.

Mel Bay’s series of music education books with “chords in photo-diagram form”, or “picture & diagram form”, was first published in the 1950s, see an issue dated 1959. The series design shown here was introduced around 1961.

The publisher’s name is presented in Hans Bohn’s Orplid with its round-top forms for A and M. Various bold sans serifs of narrow proportion were employed for the main title, including Condensed Title Gothic No. 11 (tenor banjo), Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed (mandolin), and Futura Condensed (baritone uke). The subtitle is added in Venus Extended, and the publisher’s address in Futura Bold.

From Wikipedia:

After the war, Bay was asked to write instructional material on the guitar for GIs wishing to learn music under the GI Bill. When he approached the three major music publishers in New York City, they turned him down, saying there was no future in the guitar. In 1947, he formed Mel Bay Publications and wrote the first book, The Orchestral Chord System for Guitar. This book is still in print under the title Rhythm Guitar Chord System. His Modern Guitar Method was written shortly after in 1948. After the success of Elvis Presley in the early 1950s, the guitar became more popular, helping to ensure the success of the company. For years Bay traveled from town to town, talking to guitar teachers and players, and showing them his publications. He claimed to have known every guitar teacher in America on a first-name basis.

Mel Bay’s books are still in print and – in a different design – available from Mel Bay Publications.

Mandolin Chords in Photo Diagram Form, 1963. The price is here shown in Orplid as well, with grey fill. The S in “Chords” appears to be from Condensed Title Gothic No. 11, with the rest of the line in Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed, see mismatched font. The informal script for “Mel Bay” is unidentified – Laramie, Honey, and Harmony are similar.

Ukulele Chords in Photo Diagram Form. “Jones Music” on the sticker is in Hauser Script.

Baritone Uke Chords In Photo-Diagram Form, 1961

The back covers feature a range of period faces. This one has Brush Script, Lydian, Cloister, and Flash. “Fun with the Baritone Uke” pairs Franklin Gothic with an unidentified bold casual sans with flared stems.

From the back:

Bryan Bridge over Niobara River on U.S. Highway 20 east of Valentine, Nebraska
County seat of fabulous Cherry County, and heart of the Sandhills Cattle Country. “God’s Cow Country.”

Made by Dunlap-Henline Distributors, North Platte, NE
Plastichrome by Colourpicture, Boston, MA

Here’s the latest thing in hospital fashions: BODY STICKERS!!

From the Peculiar Manicule’s groovy assortment of mod miscellania. The two sheets of stickers are undated, but the inclusion of ITC Avant Garde Gothic reveals they can’t be any older than from 1970.

“This is a no-no!” uses one of the copies of Mexico Olympic, probably Photo-Lettering’s Olympic or the Lettergraphics version known as Hotline.

The typeface used for “Soft shoulders!” is unidentified. Syncopation is similar.

The cover is very striking and with use of a stylised swift or swallow looking almost like a cross between Thyre-Lee Elliott’s new Imperial Airways “Speedbird” symbol and Alexander’s Motor Services of Scotland’s Bluebird symbol. [“Party Outings” is lettering.]

London Transport, formed in 1933 to amalgamate and coordinate the operations of the capital's various transport undertakings, carried on in the tradition of its predecessors in promoting transport opportunities, particularly those outside peak hours when capacity could be put to good and profitable use. Also in the tradition of the Underground Group the quality of much of their publicity material was second to none and amongst the best of the contemporary crop.

This 1935 “Party Outings” brochure is no exception. Unusually it shows no artist or designer yet it is designed within an inch of its life, using typography and collage photography to provide a very modern look. It is printed at one of the finest contemporary presses, the Curwen Press, and uses Kabel amongst others – unusually not LT’s own corporate typeface Johnston.

This page shows amongst other information a selection of restaurants and tea gardens that could cater for ‘numbers’. They include destinations that even then were on the edge of the rapid suburban growth that was often fuelled by the development of LT’s services! The destinations vary from outer London (such as Edgware), acknowledged Chiltern destinations and, of course, Southend on Sea as this was at the time part of a through services arrangement with the District line.

This centre double page shows an interesting variation on the then ‘new’ tube map, or railway diagram, by Beck, showing the extent of availablility of party travel tickets for children.

Undated recording by Lawrence Welk and His Champagne Music, in a polka dot design using Orplid and Futura Condensed. From Discogs:

In 1938 the orchestra garnered performance exposure for a concert at the St. Paul Hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the group's music earned the descriptive “Champagne Music” from a listener who pronounced that the orchestra's music was “effervescent, like champagne.” From that time forward, the band was billed as The Champagne Music of Lawrence Welk. [...] a 1951 late-night appearance on television station KTLA became the springboard for his later national fame.

From Wikipedia:

Shake, Rattle and Roll is the title of an early rock and roll compilation album issued by Decca Records (DL 5560) in 1955, and featuring music by Bill Haley & His Comets. […] The cover art for this album, depicting a cartoon image of Haley and the Comets riding a hot rod, would later be reused by Bear Family Records for their 2006 Haley box set release Rock ’n’ Roll Arrives.

The cover typography combines bichromatic Orplid on a bouncing baseline (“SHAKE”), black sans-serif caps, possibly from Twentieth Century Ultrabold Italic, with an added scribbled inline (“RATTLE”), and red caps from a straight-sided gothic, maybe Alternate Gothic, set on a curve (“ROLL”). The handwritten “and” is probably just that, and not type. The songs are set in regular and condensed styles of Futura (or one of its US epigones like Twentieth Century or Tempo).

Catalog number SP 326, probably from the late 1950s. The open characters of Orplid (Hans Bohn for Gebr. Klingspor, 1929) were filled with red. The titles in caps from Vogue Extra Bold (Intertype, 1933) are arranged like beams.

Cover with typography in Chwast Art Tone and Orplid.

Groove is in the Art:

Vintage Hallmark booklet featuring small, removable posters. No date or design credit but I'm guessing 1970-1971. Contents have a strong Push Pin vibe. Maybe early work by one of their illustrators?

The fonts in use were all included in the library of Photo-Lettering, Inc., and shown in their One Line Manual of Styles from 1971. Several of them — Chwast Art Tone, Davison Impacta, Davison Display — were exclusively available from the NYC type house. West Bubble Gum Blockshadow was introduced in the 1969 Alphabet Yearbook.

“There’s only one thing wrong with the rat race … The rats are winning!” in Windsor Elongated.

“Never bite the foot that stomps your grapes”. This appears to be a slightly condensed version of Davison Impacta. The counters were either manually added, or available as alternates.

“They can’t fire us!!! … Slaves have to be sold.” This poster uses another face by Meyer “Dave” Davison: It is the “A” style from his Davison Display series.

“When you’re down and out lift your head & shout… HELP” Set in caps from Neue Aurora IX.

“It pays to be a nice person … about 9¢ an hour!” in West Bubble Gum Blockshadow.

“Things Are Never As Bad As They Seem … The’re Worse” in Goudy Heavyface Condensed Swash.

The Curwen Press of Plaistow, East London was a printing press known in the twentieth century for printing high-quality advertising material, although it began as a printer of religious publications. This 1936 advertisement for a special issue of a medical journal is very much of its time – minimal, with consistent use of two colours, and particular use of printed borders – the Curwen Press commissioned many custom borders for its own use around this time, as did Monotype. It’s reproduced in a 1938 article on the company in the magazine Art & Industry, digitised by IADDB. The article describes this as the cover of a folder and says that all the rules and decorations are "standard" materials.

The main heading face is Orplid, an attractively quirky shadowed set of sans-serif caps that was very popular in graphic design of the period. For the body text, most is in Walbaum, which had recently been revived by Monotype (although the Curwen Press had become known for using handset type from Berthold before that), and with a few lines of Baskerville italic. The lining figures in the largest lines in Walbaum are rather small, and I wonder if the compositor deliberately put in figures from a smaller size of font – looking at Monotype specimens their Walbaum revival seems to always have had lining figures that reach fully to cap height. The press continued to print publicity material in a similar style after the war, and specimens from 1938 and 1952 highlight Orplid as one of their main display faces.

Harold Curwen, then the company’s director, had studied with Johnston and drew his own Johnston/Gill-ish sans-serif. The Curwen Press anthology/history Songs and Words is a real pleasure to read if you can get hold of it, and contains many illustrations of similar jobbing work done by the company.

Reproduction of a letterpress monoprint made by Claudio Rocha at Oficina Tipográfica São Paulo, 2012