Al Green – Al Green Gets Next to You album art

The typeface on the sleeve of Al Green’s third studio album Gets Next to You from 1971 is named Marvin. Here it’s used with swashes and a long shade.

Marvin was designed by Bob Quinzel for Schaedler, a phototype and lettering studio in New York. Among the other typefaces that originated at Schaedler are the Alpha series (Hiroshi Yamashita, 1970), Loose New Roman (John N. Schaedler with Ray Cruz, late 1960s), and Tabasco/Paprika (early 1970s).

Marvin is shown in their 1968 catalog (kudos to Ray Cruz for sharing!) and came hence a tad earlier than the other Marvin which was designed by Mick Chave for Face Photosetting London in 1969. Schaedler’s Marvin doesn’t have a lowercase, but it includes one to two swash alternates for most of its menhir-shaped letters. The catalog shows an outlined variant dubbed Marvin’s Ghost. As with most faces from the phototype era, there are numerous copies and clones of Marvin. Its aliases include “Berger” and “Basso”. I’m not aware of a proper digitization.