AMT Surfer Van model kit

Tiki Type Wood is a typeface that seems to revisit an early-1970s design named Rosie. Designed by House Industries, it’s part of their Tiki Type collection, a set of eight type styles inspired by Tiki culture – an aesthetic that has more to do with US American stereotypes of Oceanian art from the second third of the 20th century than with actual Polynesian, Melanesian, or Micronesian cultures. The font set was originally released in 1997 on a CD-ROM that additionally included a set of clip art and “12 wave-crashin’ surf tunes” from Estrus Records.

Sometime around 2010, Tiki Type Wood was chosen for the box design of AMT’s Surfer Van, a model kit of a custom 1977 Ford Econoline van. Its alternating top-wide and bottom-wide letterforms are set on a bouncing baseline and embellished with a gradient fill. “1977 Ford Econoline” is in another style, Tiki Type Island, while the ampersand in “Surf & Woodie” comes from Tiki Type Magic. The patterned glyph between “Surfer” and “Van” as well as the Tiki decal on the van probably are part of the font set as well.