Happy Birthday Herb Lubalin

It’s gotta take a lot of guts to use your boss’ typeface — one that notoriously gets misused — to set his own birthday announcement. But you can get away with it if you’re as good as Louise Fili. She made this poster for Herb Lubalin’s 59th birthday in 1977, when she was the newest designer in Lubalin’s studio.

“The morning of his birthday I set out extra early with a staple gun and a sheaf of these posters — set TNT (tight not touching) in ITC Avant Garde Gothic — and covered the route from Herb’s house on MacDougal Alley to the studio on East 31st Street.” Fili, TDC’s Type Over Time event, March 10, 2017

It’s not quite tight-not-touching, (the “HAP” touches to prevent big spaces), but it is certainly in Lubalin’s letterfitting style, with everything packed as tight as possible without obscuring legibility. This is also a fine example of Avant Garde Used Right; Fili restrained herself to just one ligature.