Short Eyes (1977) movie posters

Poster for Short Eyes, designed by Alan Peckolick at LSC&P Design Group Inc. This company emerged from Lubalin, Smith, Carnase Inc. (LSC) after Peckolick became a partner in 1974.

The quotes (“Jesus help me, cause man won’t.”, “I walk soft, but I hit hard.” etc.) are set in ITC Gorilla. Designed by Tom Carnase and Ronné Bonder for ITC in 1970, this face was digitized by Bitstream. MyFonts mentions that the design idea was “borrowed from Post Oldstyle”.

“Short Eyes” is lettering based on ITC Serif Gothic Heavy (1974) by Herb Lubalin and Tony Di Spigna. With the top-heavy initial S that is echoed at the end of the second line and the similarity of h and y (as well as o and e), the lockup evokes a mirror effect. The credits are set in light ITC Avant Garde Gothic, designed by Lubalin and Carnase in 1970.

Peckolick died in 2017 at the age of 76. The New York Times obituary has examples of his work – and a quote about his attention to typographic detail: “I kept getting fired from these agencies,” [Peckolick] recalled, “because I spent too much time worrying about what the type looked like instead of selling the soap.”