André Charles & His Quisqueya Ibo Combo Group album art
Ad Werner (1925–2017) was a Dutch graphic designer who also created two dozen display typefaces. While most remained exclusive to the respective clients, two of his designs were distributed globally.
In 1972, Werner submitted his Dubbeldik to Mecanorma. Unlike their competitor Letraset, this French manufacturer of dry transfer lettering sheets didn’t maintain a studio with staff designers. Instead, Mecanorma sourced their exclusives in a “permanent” type design contest. An article in Graphis from November 1972 details the selection criteria and royalties:
Every two months the projects contributed by graphic designers from various nations are examined by a specialized commission. More than 300 type creations have been received. Those considered best suited to modern graphic needs are then issued in the form of transfer letters. The creator of the selected typeface receives a royalty of Fr. 0.15 for each sheet sold. Due to the well-organized distribution network of Mecanorma, the artist may receive anything between Fr. 2,000 [ca. 400 USD then] and Fr. 10,000 or more per year.
Between March 1972 and May 1973 alone, the contest spawned 27 published typefaces. Dubbeldik was the inaugural winner of the first prize. Paul van Yperen quotes Werner in his designer profile for Dutch Graphic Roots:
“The font didn’t get me huge amounts of regular income but lots of recognition including an international award that came with 10,000 guilders and a huge party at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam.”
In 1974, Ronald Clyne used Dubbeldik for an album of Caribbean folk music, recorded by Haitian vocalist and composer André Charles with his Port-au-Prince-based Ibo Combo and released by Folkways Records. The exclusively typographic cover features the lowercase-only inline face in two sizes and with playful coloring. It’s printed in two inks. The two e’s in Charles’ name and the two o’s in “combo” – with filled-in counters – are highlighted in a third eggplant-like color that was created by overprinting the red and the purple.
In 1973, Werner released a second typeface named Paperclip, again with lowercase letters only, and again through Mecanorma.
Ad Werner would have turned 100 years today. Happy birthday!
A double sheet of Dubbeldik in 84pt for dry transfer lettering. The glyph set includes alternates for a l r y as well as a ligature for the Dutch ij digraph.
