Matthew Cooper's identity for Scottish rock outfit Franz Ferdinand freely references the Russian avant-garde. Bulgakov, Rodchenko and Lissitzky, they are all here. joining in on the post-punk revival fest. The riffing is in my opinion both fun and well made, but the choice to use Century Gothic, of all faces, is a bit odd. For while the constructivsts where no stranger to geometric lettering, it usualy took on a more angular style than what was experimented with by comtemporaries in Germany. In Century Gothic, the case is often that the circle takes the square, in due part to Monotype fitting the type onto ITC Avant Garde Gothic’s metrics.

Cover for their 2008 debut LP, "The Age of the Understatement."

Helvetica Ultra Compressed used as the typeface for their logo and album title.

Text logo for The Last Shadow Puppets

Diamond Mine (2011)

Wikipedia:

Diamond Mine is a collaborative studio album by Scottish singer-songwriter King Creosote and English electronica musician Jon Hopkins, released on 28 March 2011 through Domino Records. […] The album was subsequently followed by the EP, Honest Words in September 2011, and the double a-side single, “John Taylor’s Month Away”/“Missionary” in February 2012.

Honest Words EP (September 2011)

Missionary / John Taylor’s Month Away (2012)

Third Swan (2012)

The Jubilee EP (April 2012)

The cover, with Weiss Bold at top, and Regular underneath.

Got a couple of albums in the mail on Friday, one of them by Julia Holter. The album, called “Have You In My Wilderness” is astounding. The minimalist design of the packaging, by Matthew Cooper at Domino Records, is the perfect accompaniment to the music.

The black-and-white photography is framed by a stark white background. The font used is Weiss, designed by Emil Rudolf Weiss in 1928. It has such a distinct personality, partly due to the unusual shift from thick to thin in the vertical strokes. I found it to be a very inviting choice for the overall design. I also love to see a barcode complement the design instead of blemished by it, as seen on the back of the album. This again shows how the use of one strong font can carry an entire design.

Enjoy the photography and the use of Weiss in Cooper’s design. Oh, and give a listen to the album, too! You won’t regret it.

More pictures of the album design at sweston.com

The back cover. Text set in Weiss. Barcode elegantly done.

The inside cover. Text set in Weiss.

Inside

The disc. Titles set in Weiss.

Inside the liner notes. Lyrics and song titles set in Weiss.