Hanu-Ancuței (1973) and Cinel Cinel (1976) album art, Electrecord
Hanu Ancuţei (1973). The author’s name is set in Windsor Elongated. Olivia (and Lettres Ornées B) didn’t come with a Ț, so the designer added a custom comma accent made from some expendable letter part, possible the tail of a Q.
Covers for two radioplays recorded at Radio România and released by the national record label Electrecord. In both cases, designer Dimitrie Sbiera chose Olivia as the titling typeface.
Olivia is a 19th-century-style set of ornamented italic Tuscan caps. It’s shown in Lettera 1 (1954), the first volume of the Swiss series of alphabet source books, with the design credited to Alex Stocker. In or before 1971, the face was adopted by Mecanorma, the French manufacturer of dry-transfer lettering sheets. The Mecanorma version went under the name Lettres Ornées B. Lettres Ornées A was their adaptation of Gillé’s Lettres Ornées, Lettres Ornées C is Midolle’s Romaine Genre Arabesque. Unlike A and C, B disappeared from later Mecanorma catalogs. Did it sell poorly? Or was the adaptation unauthorized, and did Armin Haab, the editor of Lettera, send a cease and desist letter? See his comment on plagiarism from the preface to Lettera 4 which I’ve quoted in a previous post.
Hanu Ancuţei from 1973 [Discogs] is a dramatized adaptation of the novel of the same title, written in 1928 by Romanian author Mihail Sadoveanu (1880–1961). Cinel Cinel from 1976 [Discogs] is based on the works of Moldavian poet and playwright Vasile Alexsandri (1821–1890).
Thanks to the Herb Lubalin Study Center (and, by extension, to Nitzan Hermon) for pointing me to Dimitrie Sbiera’s work!
Cinel Cinel (1976). According to the blog by Biblioteca Naţională a Republicii Moldova, this record was released in 1984. This date probably refers to a reissue, as Dimitrie Sbiera emigrated to France in 1977. The secondary typeface is Aurora-Grotesk VII.
