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Billboard cover, “License to Thrive”, May 2021

Contributed by Emma Kumer on May 18th, 2021. Artwork published in
May 2021
.
Billboard cover, “License to Thrive”, May 2021
Source: billboard.com Billboard Magazine. License: All Rights Reserved.

Billboard featured Olivia Rodrigo, singer of the hit song “Driver’s License” as a cover star on the May 15th 2021 issue of their bi-monthly magazine. The pastel complimentary colors make this image striking, but it’s hard to ignore the bold use of the Pacifico with a subtle drop shadow. The stylized characters of the L and T seem to appear as if the magazine designer used an old version of the typeface, but the loopy letterforms are unmistakable. Pacifico makes an appearance in the band across the top of the page, in the same subdued chartreuse as the magazine’s title.

The cover was likely designed by Billboard creative director Andrew Horton. The photograph was taken by David Needleman. Rodrigo wears a floral, ruffled Rodarte shirt, a blush cowboy hat from Gladys Tamez Millinery, and Marc Jacobs drop plastic heart earrings.

Typefaces

  • Pacifico (Vernon Adams)
  • MVB Solano Gothic
  • LL Circular

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3 Comments on “Billboard cover, “License to Thrive”, May 2021”

  1. Not quite sure what is going on here: Neither the original Pacifico (top, 2011) nor the greatly revised version (bottom, 2016) is a match for the script. My best bet is that this is a customized version, or lettering based on Pacifico. Or is there another font that comes that close?

  2. typo on your tags. should be “olivia rodrigo” not “oliva rodrigo”.

    I agree, it’s not Pacifico the font available from fonts.google.com, but is probably based on it?

    Is there a name for the technique of putting the art in front of the type (“billboard” in this case), and do you have a tag for it?

  3. Thanks for catching the typo David, fixed it!

    The effect you refer to is collected on this website with the tag flat depth – the best short description we could think of.

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