Butley by Simon Gray
Contributed by Florian Hardwig on Nov 8th, 2025. Artwork published in
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This week, Fantagraphics published Roy Kuhlman: Reluctant Modernist, “the first ever collection of the groundbreaking design of Grove Press designer Roy Kuhlman” who died in 2007. I haven’t seen Steven Brower’s monograph yet, but we’ve posted about a dozen of book covers and jackets by Kuhlman to Fonts In Use so far, documenting his eclectic typographic palette.
Here’s another jacket design by Kuhlman, for a play by Simon Gray, published in book form by Viking Press. Butley was first performed in 1971 at the Criterion Theatre directed by Harold Pinter. The photo by John Haynes depicts actors Alan Bates and Richard O’Callaghan. The title typeface chosen by Kuhlman is Mania Shaded.
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In addition to being a versatile font user, Roy Kuhlman also developed a distinctive hand-lettering style which he used in some his designs. As it’s lettering and not type, we can’t feature those on Fonts In Use.
What we can do, however, is point out that David Jonathan Ross recently designed a typeface based on Kuhlman’s lettering, made with the blessing of The Kuhlman Archive. Anticipating the launch of the aforementioned monograph, David released it as the September 2025 installment of the typographic cornucopia that is the Font of the Month Club. You can read more about Kuhlman (the font) and see the lettering that inspired it on djr.com.
On Mastodon, David announced: