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Firestone Presents Your Christmas Favorites album series

Contributed by Javi Gonzalez on Dec 25th, 2024. Artwork published in
circa 1962
.
Firestone Presents Your Christmas Favorites album series 1
Source: archive.org Internet Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.

Starting in 1962, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company issued a series of seven annual Christmas albums. From Discogs:

The first three albums in the series were produced by Forrell, Thomas & Polack Associates, Inc. The last four, by Forell & Thomas, Inc. The manufacturer of the records is not identified explicitly. But based on the data printed on the labels and inscribed in the runout of the records, volumes 1, 2, 3 ,5 and 7 were manufactured by the custom records division of RCA Records, and Volumes 4 and 6 were manufactured by Capitol Records.

While the initial release was titled “Favorite Christmas Carols”, the following albums were named “Your Favorite Christmas Carols”, “Your Christmas Favorites”, and “Your Favorite Christmas Music”. Apart from the changing colors and credits, the basic design is always the same, depicting a large ribbon with mistletoe against an ornamental wrapping paper in the background. The title typeface is Cloister Black.

Other text on most of the covers is set in designs by Filmotype, namely Rodgers, Wasp, and Fleet. Volume 5 is an exception in that it replaces Rodgers with Caslon Bold Condensed – which was carried by Filmotype as “CA51”. Some smaller bits also use the bold weight of Trade Gothic Extended. Lastly, the text on the golden starburst stickers is in all-caps Clarendon.

Firestone Presents Your Christmas Favorites album series 2
Source: archive.org Internet Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.
Firestone Presents Your Christmas Favorites album series 3
Source: archive.org Internet Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.
Firestone Presents Your Christmas Favorites album series 4
Source: archive.org Internet Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.
Firestone Presents Your Christmas Favorites album series 5
Source: archive.org Internet Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.
Firestone Presents Your Christmas Favorites album series 6
Source: archive.org Internet Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.
The final volume features a different photo for the ribbon.
Source: archive.org Internet Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.

The final volume features a different photo for the ribbon.

Typefaces

  • Cloister Black
  • Filmotype Rodgers
  • Filmotype Wasp
  • Filmotype Fleet
  • Caslon Condensed (Keystone)
  • Trade Gothic Extended
  • Clarendon

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9 Comments on “Firestone Presents Your Christmas Favorites album series”

  1. Cloister Black is used with a non-standard Y (in “Your”) and the alternate form for V (in “Vol.”), cf. ATF’s 1923 specimen. Since many of the other fonts are from Filmotype’s library, chances are that this is their version as well. It’s shown with the alias CX6 in a catalog from the early 1970s – unfortunately without a full glyph set.

  2. So funny to see these here. My parents bought a few of these when I was a kid and played them every Christmas. It amazes me how much of the type I saw back then was Filmotype.

  3. I don’t know what was the last album to use Filmotype Rodgers, or when it have ended

  4. Javi, do you mean Firestone’s Christmas series? According to the Discogs link, that ended in 1968, after seven albums.

    Or are you asking about Rodgers in general? The Filmotype was introduced in 1951 and had its heydays in the 1950s and 1960s. According to Stuart Sandler’s history, Filmotype by the Letter, the machine was sold through the mid-1970s. I would assume that at least some studios and typesetting services kept their Filmotype around for a while.

    In many cases, though, it was superseded by other devices, first and foremost by VGC’s Photo Typositor, which started to thrive around the mid-1960s and remained relevant for display typesetting throughout the 1980s and in some places well into the 1990s. VGC used the same font format of two-inch filmstrips that Filmotype had pioneered, and copied their typeface catalog wholesale. This included Rodgers, which VGC listed as H-7. To my knowledge, it hasn’t been digitized yet, and hence disappeared when the industry went digital in the 1980s.

    Font technology aside, I don’t expect you to find a lot of uses of Rodgers (on album covers or elsewhere) from after around 1970 or 1975: type is subject to fashion, and this style simply wasn’t that hip anymore. Exceptions prove the rule.

    Theoretically, though, you could still design an album cover with Rodgers today – granted you have a copy of the font in film format and a device to use it, be it a Filmotype, a Photo Typositor or another vintage phototypesetter that operates with two-inch filmstrips. Alternatively, you could use a scanner and a computer, and work from either a film font or a printed sample.

  5. Also, i don’t know if you could find a full glyph set of Filmotype Rodgers?

  6. I made a scan for you:

    Glyph set of H-7, which was the alphanumeric code used by VGC for their copy of Filmotype Rodgers, as shown in a 1969 catalog

  7. Also, isn’t these albums a staff pack?

  8. Found one! Here’s another album with Filmotype Rodgers from 1988: Symphony No. 6, “Scythian” Suite by Sergei Prokofiev, Philips Digital Classics.

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