Coffee Tea or Me? book series
First edition (hardcover) by Bartholomew House, 1967, illustrated by Bill Wenzell. The illustrations on the front of jacket are by Roy E. LaGrone. Secondary typefaces include Craw Clarendon Condensed, Filmotype Harmony (or Photo-Lettering’s copy, Almadine Script), and Century Expanded Italic.
Coffee Tea or Me? was advertised as “the uninhibited memoirs of two airline stewardesses”, and credited to Trudy Baker and Rachel Jones. In fact, it was ghost-written by Donald Bain. The 1967 hardcover dust jacket features Caruso Roxy, set in all caps. The same typeface was also used for the paperback cover, now bigger and in mixed case, as well as for the three sequels published until 1975. In 1973, the book was made into a film.
Caruso Roxy is a typeface that we’ve come to associate with the swinging 60s.
Coffee Tea or Me? The uninhibited memoirs of two airline stewardesses. First Bantam edition (paperback), November 1968 with cover art by Bill Wenzel and small text in all-caps News Gothic.
The Coffee Tea or Me Girls’ ’Round the World Diary. First edition (hardcover) by Grosset & Dunlap, 1970. The multilingual toasts are stereotypically added in more or less fitting typefaces: Peignot (French), Post-Antiqua (Hebrew), Cloister Black (German), Centaur (Spanish), Akzidenz-Grotesk Extended (Scandinavian), Jessen-Schrift (Greek), Americana (English), Mandarin (Japanese), and Century Schoolbook (Italian).
Jacket and cover with spine lettering
The Coffee Tea or Me Girls’ ’Round the World Diary. Paperback edition by Bantam Books, April 1971, with small type in Alternate Gothic.
The Coffee Tea Or Me Girls: Lay it On The Line, Bantam Books, 1973. The fat years are over: the main typeface now is Caruso Roxy’s light weight. Secondary text is in italic caps from Caledonia.
The Coffee Tea Or Me Girls Get Away From It All, Bantam Books, 1975, with Helvetica used for the text in red.
