Black Sabbath – Master of Reality album art
Master of Reality is the third studio album by Black Sabbath, released in the United Kingdom by Vertigo on 6 August 1971.
The first pressings came with a poster featuring a photo of the band, taken by Keef (not depicted here). The album’s title is shown embossed, with the black-on-black lettering only visible in relief. Later editions would drop the costly embossing in favor of the album title printed in gray – as well as in many other colorways.
The letterforms were distorted to resemble a fluttering flag. They are taken from Lodwick Kabel, a weight extension of Rudolf Koch’s Kabel that’s bolder than Kabel Black (1929) and also ITC Kabel Ultra (1975). London-based typesetting studio Photoscript showed it as “Exclusive Royalty face” in their 1970 catalog. See the Blog post for more details.
Master of Reality was the band’s first album to include printed lyrics. They are set in Gill Sans, with caps from a bold weight for the titles. At least on the shown US pressing by Warner Records, the credits block uses News Gothic.
In this photo, the raised title lettering becomes a tad more visible: the protective foil accentuates the contours.
