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The Public Theater logo evolution (1994–2008)

Contributed by Stephen Coles on Oct 2nd, 2012. Artwork published in
circa 1994
.

4 Comments on “The Public Theater logo evolution (1994–2008)”

  1. Hey! great design, but… there might be a error in the middle logo, isn’t there? Is this really Akzidenz Grotesk? This 5 looks like it comes from Knockout…

  2. …and if it really were AG the capital C endpoints would be at an angle instead of horizontal. Some kind of typeface conspiracy is afoot!!

  3. Center one is not AKG at all.

  4. There’s no conspiracy, just a confusing caption.

    My understanding is that in the 2005 version, “PUBLIC” is unchanged from the original 1994 version and still is based on Gothic styles from Morgan’s wood type. The “50” in this anniversary logo appears to be added from Knockout (No. 71?) already.

    Where Akzidenz-Grotesk – and specifically its light condensed style – comes into the picture is for the smaller text framing the logo (“Joe’s Pub | Shakespeare in the Park” etc.). You can see more Akzidenz-Grotesk (including wide styles) in the “As You Like” poster shown in Pentagram’s case study.

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