1988 poster
A poster promoting the Mike Tyson vs. Tony Tubbs world heavyweight championship boxing match on 21 March, 1988 at the then newly-opened Tokyo Dome. It was designed by John C. Jay, with English-language typography by Neville Brody and portraits by Anthony Russo.
The poster features the initial versions of what would later become the fonts FF Tyson, FF World, FF Tokyo and FF Dome. The Japanese text uses Gona.
Source: www.laffichiste.com License: All Rights Reserved.
Official reissue from the collection The 100 Best Posters from Europe and the United States 1945–1990 (1994)
Source: www.laffichiste.com License: All Rights Reserved.
Detail
Source: www.laffichiste.com License: All Rights Reserved.
Detail
Source: web.archive.org License: All Rights Reserved.
A 1993 poster recreating the typography of the 1988 poster for the release of the fonts by FontShop
3 Comments on “Tyson vs. Tubbs poster”
Can this technically be considered LTypI?
Maybe
Very strictly speaking, my understanding is that for the original poster, Neville Brody didn’t use fonts (for the English text), but lettering. As such, it technically wouldn’t qualify for Fonts In Use. But since I don’t know in which form the letterforms were applied – maybe Brody did indeed build himself some prototype fonts? – I gave it the benefit of the doubt.
Also, both the poster lettering and the fonts are by Brody, and were made within a few years. As such, it’s not comparable to another case we had to reject once, in which the inscription on Trajan’s Column was presented as an example of Trajan in use. That was definitely a stretch.
Now for the LTypI question. It’s defined as picking a typeface because its name matches the content. Even though the text matches the typeface names here, I’d argue the original posters are not a case of LTypI, simply because the typeface names came later. However, the FontShop promo included at the end do show the words set in the corresponding fonts. We thus can add the LTypI tag!