After being inspired by the film Marty Supreme, I decided to add a few items of my own creation to the world this movie created. These would have been celebrity endorsed and promotional items existing after Marty’s rise to fame.

A classic British novel, first published in 1920, and set in the industrial English Midlands, Women in Love was written by D.H. Lawrence. This is a post-war American edition published as part of the “Modern Library” series of titles issued by Random House. The striking and simple cover is by noted artist and graphic designer Edward McKnight Kauffer. McKnight Kauffer was back and working in his native United States but much of his working life during the inter-war years was spent in the UK where he worked for a range of major clients, most notably London Transport.

Poland. Key to Europe, featuring Peignot gras dramatically staged with shadow effect and a sloping baseline

Two books written by Raymond Leslie Buell and published by Alfred A. Knopf, both with Peignot used for the title.

Buell (1896–1946) was an American social scientist who at the time served as president of the Foreign Policy Association. In Poland. Key to Europe, he points out the importance of Poland maintaining its independence and thus saving Europe “from the domination of either Fascism or Communism”. It was published in April 1939 – a few months before Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and soon after attacked Poland. Isolated America followed in May 1940, when German troops invaded France and the Low Countries. In this book, Buell expressed his stance against U.S. isolationism. One and a half years later, the United States abandoned its neutrality and entered World War II following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.

Peignot was pretty new in 1939. A.M. Cassandre’s groundbreaking design with the novel mix of capital and minuscule forms was first released by Deberny & Peignot in 1937. The bold weight, Peignot gras, followed in 1938. On the jacket for the first book, it’s paired with Egmont and Ariston. “Key to Europe” is handlettering. It appears to mimick Ariston (see the spine panel) – or is it the other way around? The text on the inner flap is set in Monotype Bodoni.

The bold geometric sans on the second book jacket is Vogue, used with some of its alternate glyphs. The author’s name is lettered, again not too far removed from Ariston.

Second edition jacket of Isolated America with a blurb by William Allen White

Label from 1927

The labels used by Italian violinmaker Ernesto Pevere from around 1924 to 1930 is set in Poppelbaum’s Block. Local type foundries Fondografica and Reggiani had this design as Bologna and Nerone, respectively. This is perhaps the first label design he ever used. He made a modification to the word “Liutista” (“luthist”) on certain labels from 1928, altering it to “Liutaio” (“luthier”) by hand.

In 1930, he introduced a new label. While it’s possible that other designs exist, the one depicted here is quite small and incorporates two unidentified sans-serif typefaces. Breite halbfette Grotesk might be the less wide one.

A new label appeared in 1940, The new label used four typefaces, and stated with whom he apprenticed. The maker’s name is in Ariston, with Narciso Chiara Larga (Nebiolo’s version of Edel-Grotesk / Aurora-Grotesk VI–VII) below it. The name of the maker’s teacher, Ettore Soffritti, is in Copperplate Gothic, and the last line in Semplicità.

The latest label design I can find uses a typeface similar to Centaur for the maker’s name – possibly Inkunabula – and an unidentified bold italic typeface for the place and year in which the instrument was made.

Ernesto Pevere was born in 1891 and established as a luthier in Ferrera, where he was a pupil and assistant of Ettore Soffritti. After Soffritti’s death in 1928, Pevere continued working in a virtually indistinguishable style, sometimes using Soffritti’s name on the label. He worked with great energy, producing many instruments in a range of quality and finish, using classical models and a rich orange to red coloured varnish. At his death in 1963 he is reputed to have made 400 violins, 10 violas and 20 cellos. [Ingles & Hayday]

Label from 1928

Label from 1928

Label from 1929

Label from 1931

Label from 1941

Label from 1943

Taken in November 2019.

These pictures show the abandoned Luwal shoe factory, Luckenwalde, Brandenburg, in what used to be the GDR. The script typeface used for the sign on the roof is Ariston, designed by Martin Wilke and first cast by the Berthold foundry in nearby Berlin in 1932. The version used here is from a later era when letterforms could be stretched and cut from vinyl.

According to André Winternitz (rottenplaces.de), the factory was originally built by the Niendorf brothers for manufacturing pianos. In 1921, it became “Schuhfabrik Dulberg AG”. This name changed in 1924 to “Schuhfabrik Luwal AG”. The products were marketed as “Geier – der Markenschuh” [Perladesa]. In GDR times, the company operated under the name “VEB Luckenwalder Schuhfabrik (Luwal)”. See more images on rottenplaces.de.

Taken in April 2019.

Source: www.johnsonbanks.co.uk License: All Rights Reserved.

Torbay is a borough in Devon, England, […] spanning the towns of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham, located around an east-facing natural harbour (Tor Bay) on the English Channel. A popular tourist destination with a tight conurbation of resort towns, Torbay’s sandy beaches, mild climate and recreational and leisure attractions have given rise to the nickname of the English Riviera. — Wikipedia

In 1982, British graphic designer John Gorham (1937–2001) was commissioned to devise a poster for the English Riviera. His solution presents a detail of the scenery in a carefully defined color palette, echoing the style of travel posters made in the second quarter of the 20th century. The composition here is boiled down to the absolute essence: a sandy stripe for the beach, separated by a thin white line of spume from a turquoise rectangle for the sea, underneath a gradient from white to deep blue for the sky — Rothko meets Albers. In the foreground: The silhouette of a stylized Torbay palm tree. Not only is it perfectly centered, its crown is drawn with symmetrical leaves — this is the English Riviera. The type is Gill Sans (what else?) set in three stacked and justified lines of caps from the Light weight (first issued in 1931), with the names of the three towns joined by middle dots. Johnson Banks’ blog post about John Gorham suggests that this work of his became quite influential:

His poster for the English Riviera unfortunately encouraged a whole generation of designers to pretend that they actually were 1930s poster artists.

For those interested in Gorham and his work, see also Mike Dempsey’s article about his “local hero”.

Gorham’s iconic poster spawned many variations and follow-ups. These were designed by David Hughes and others. Most of them maintained the combination of Gorham’s symmetrical palm tree and light Gill Sans. The website of the English Riviera Tourist Board used to have a dedicated page with a full list of the annual posters, from 1983 to 2004. Unfortunately the images are gone, but bloggers designatweeta and Torquay Palms reposted some of them. A selection is reproduced below.

Source: www.anatomised.com Anatomised. License: All Rights Reserved.

Pool, 1986. “One of several posters designed by David Hughes in this long-running campaign for The English Riviera.” — Anatomised

Source: designatweeta.wordpress.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Beach huts, 1988

Source: designatweeta.wordpress.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Teacup, 1990

Source: www.pinterest.de License: All Rights Reserved.

English Rose, 1991

Source: designatweeta.wordpress.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Snorkel, 1997

Source: designatweeta.wordpress.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Spring Breaks, 1992. From a series of seasonal ads featuring Bernhard Modern Bold Italic (ATF, 1938).

Source: designatweeta.wordpress.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Autumn Breaks, 1992

Source: designatweeta.wordpress.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Christmas Breaks, 1992

Source: designatweeta.wordpress.com License: All Rights Reserved.

English Spoken Here, 1993. The script is Ariston extrafett (Berthold, 1936).

Source: www.flickr.com Torquay Palms. License: CC BY-SA.

Little Differences, 1994

Source: designatweeta.wordpress.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Diving Board, 1995

Source: www.flickr.com License: CC BY-SA.

Camel, 1999. From a series of ads that showed John Gorham’s original poster in other places, from Egypt to Australia and Mars.

Source: www.flickr.com License: CC BY-SA.

Uluru, 2004

Source: www.englishrivierabid.co.uk License: All Rights Reserved.

The current version (2018) features a weaker, asymmetric palm tree (or is fireworks?) in red and blue. The type is still in Gill Sans caps, but now in two weights, paired with Arial Rounded Bold, set on a wave.

Source: www.flickr.com Jainbow. License: All Rights Reserved.

A variation of the original palm tree poster, spotted in 2012 outside Torquay Station.

This record catalog is probably the first one by Polydor, issued in 1948/1949, shortly after World War II. Founded in 1913, Polydor was relaunched as Deutsche Grammophon’s popular music label in 1946. The booklet lists all records that were available at the time, in 78 rpm shellac format, featuring mainly schlager and other popular music. The table of contents mentions “melodies from sound films and revue operettas”, Christmas recordings, national anthems, and special recordings including “frequency records” (for testing purposes?), bell-ringing and “sound music”.

While the cover features script lettering as it’s typical for the era, the interior is set with a number of German pre-war typefaces. See more pages in Klaus Hiltscher’s Flickr album.

The half-title combines the newly introduced Polydor logo with Berthold-Grotesk mager (1928) and Ariston fett (1933).

The title page has a slightly different, hand-rendered version of the logo and caps from Stahl mager (1939).

The text typeface is Stempel Garamond (1925). The table of contents has more Stahl.

Promotional for an episode of a weekly radio show presented on The Source FM, a Cornish community-ran radio station.

Alteration shop with an alliteration sign featuring a cleverly altered A for a.

Art Direction: Richard Frankel
Design: Jean Krikorian

Cover art from Adult Books 403, Caves of Iron, 1967 – cover artist: Robert Bonfils

“This jacket goes both ways” – the dust jacket can be flipped for the male/female version.

“The paperbacks profiled in ‘Queer Pulp’ illustrate the heightened awareness of sexual diversity issues in the mid-twentieth century. Featuring the work of well-known authors such as W. Somerset Maugham and Truman Capote, to the lowbrow and no-brow scribes who worked under several names at once, ‘Queer Pulp’ recovers a lost chapter in American publishing history and is an entertaining introduction to these lost, lurid literary genres.”

Filled with great cover art photos, too.

Cover art from Brandon Books 618, Flying Lesbian, 1963 – cover Artist: Fred Fixler