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Magic: The Gathering – Weatherlight packaging and print ads

Contributed by Jayce Wheeled on Jan 5th, 2025. Artwork published in .
Magic: The Gathering – Weatherlight packaging and print ads 1
Source: comics.ha.com Heritage Auctions. License: All Rights Reserved.

Weatherlight is an expansion card set of the playable card game Magic: The Gathering. Weatherlight was released in June of 1997, and was the eleventh expansion set released for the card game.

Shown here are a variety of card packs, boxes, and print advertisements. Above you will see two packs of magic cards.

The logo for Weatherlight is set in Liefendre, a calligraphic typeface designed by Jim Marcus and released by T-26 just a year earlier. The logo uses the alternative W glyph.

The Magic: The Gathering logo combines custom lettering for “Magic” [based on Quadrata II, see comments] with Belwe for “The Gathering”. The print ads below use a combination of Liefendre and ITC Legacy Sans.

Magic: The Gathering card pack box for the Weatherlight set – sealed box
Source: www.ebay.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Magic: The Gathering card pack box for the Weatherlight set – sealed box

Magic: The Gathering card pack box for the Weatherlight set – view once opened an on display
Source: www.whatnot.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Magic: The Gathering card pack box for the Weatherlight set – view once opened an on display

Magic: The Gathering card pack box for the Weatherlight set – view of logo on side of box
Source: comics.ha.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Magic: The Gathering card pack box for the Weatherlight set – view of logo on side of box

Weatherlight magazine print ad from 1997, with ITC Legacy Sans in use for the slogan and body text, Liefendre in use for the logo.
License: All Rights Reserved.

Weatherlight magazine print ad from 1997, with ITC Legacy Sans in use for the slogan and body text, Liefendre in use for the logo.

Weatherlight magazine print ad from 1997 – spread page 1. Leifendre and ITC Legacy are used here.
Source: archive.org License: All Rights Reserved.

Weatherlight magazine print ad from 1997 – spread page 1. Leifendre and ITC Legacy are used here.

Weatherlight magazine print ad from 1997 – spread page 2. Leifendre and ITC Legacy are used here.
License: All Rights Reserved.

Weatherlight magazine print ad from 1997 – spread page 2. Leifendre and ITC Legacy are used here.

Typefaces

  • Liefendre
  • Quadrata II
  • Belwe
  • ITC Legacy Sans

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Artwork location

3 Comments on “Magic: The Gathering – Weatherlight packaging and print ads”

  1. Thanks for this contribution; great to have a Use for Liefendre! As you wrote on Font ID, this font was discontinued again already before 2004. With such a short lifespan, it has become pretty obscure.

    Three cheers to Kevin, who was the one to track down its name – a true master of typeface identification who tirelessly helps people finding the right font!

  2. Although “Magic” is indeed a custom wordmark, it seems to be heavily based on Quadrata II.

  3. Good point, Riccardo! Here’s a glyph set. It’s an edge case as the letterforms were modified quite a bit, but since there are not much other typefaces in this genre, I agree it’s clear that Quadrata II provided the inspiration. Let’s add it to the post, along the “lettering derived from typeface” tag. Thanks.

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