One of the first Solo releases (catalog number 102) from 1972, by Pat Daly [More info on Discogs]

Solo is a label launched by the Irish Release Records in 1972. Their singles didn’t come with a picture sleeve, but featured generic labels with a red florette and a logo in the biline face Branding. Credited to Woudhuysen Ltd., a London-based studio run by Dutch designer Lewis Woudhuysen, this face was added to Letraset’s Letragraphica range earlier that year. Most of the label typography is in Gill Sans.

Label of a later release from 1974. The same design was used until 1980.

The Best Of The Young Generation (front)

In view of the name of the font, by way of a very seasonal Fonts In Use submission, as I write this on an Easter Sunday evening, here is the font Eggomania, as seen on the sleeve of The Best Of The Young Generation, The Young Generation being something of a mainstay of entertainment shows on the BBC during the late 1960s and into the middle of the 1970s, founded by Nottingham-born Dougie Squires and probably best remembered for their appearances with Rolf Harris.

Particularly prominent members of the troupe were Nigel Lythgoe, later noted for appearing on shows such as So You Think You Can Dance, Leslie Judd, later a member of the Blue Peter presentation team and sometime “Bond Girl” Wei Wei Wong, who also went on to be one of the assistants on The Golden Shot.

The word “International” preceding the RCA brand carries on the theme of branding, since Branding is the name of the chosen font which is quite similar to Eggomania. The small print is in Helvetica.

See Discogs for the track listing.

The album reference no. is INTS 1490 and the sleeve was printed in England by Robert Stace. The (identical) colour and black-and-white photograph on the sleeve is unfortunately uncredited.

The Best of the Young Generation (rear)

Branding is the typeface used on the covers of the debut album Bella Dentro (“Beautiful Inside”) and the single of the same title by Italian singer-songwriter Paolo Frescura, released by RCA Records in 1975.

The designer of this film-era typeface is unknown. It emerged in or before 1972 and was carried by Letraset (before 1976), but is not included in the list of Letraset exclusives in Mike Daines’ Faces from Letraset, which suggests that its origins lie elsewhere. The same face is shown as Convoy in Dan X. Solo’s Moderne Alphabets (1999). HFF Clip Hanger (2009, free for personal use) is a digitization based on Convoy. Such bi-line/outline faces were popular among aspiring type designers in the early 1970s, but not so much among users. Similar releases include Monika (Hollenstein, 1970), the (original) Mierop Inline (PLINC, before 1971), Neo Script (Mecanorma, 1972), Duo (Mecanorma, 1973), Tangui (Letraset, 1973), and Garbo (Mecanorma, 1976).

“Bella Dentro” / “Non Andartene Via Stasera”

Branding in use on the Spanish sleeve of the debut single by Belgian soft rock band Lester & Denwood, “America (What Have You Done?)” with B-side “Song For Joane”, released in 1973 by Atlantic Records.