The last New York Times Magazine issue of each year, entitled “The Lives They Lived”, is dedicated to the artists, creators and thinkers who have left us in the past twelve months. The 2023 issue was designed by Claudia Isabel Rubín, under the direction of Ben Grandgenett and Gail Bichler.

The issue uses Herbus for the titles and artists names, in addition to the custom NYT Mag Serif and Sans designed by A2-TYPE exclusively for the New York Times Magazine.

Two giants who left us this year: Tina Turner, the Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll, passed away on May 24, 2023. Günther Kieser, the German King of Concert Posters, died March 22, 2023.

This A1 poster announced a concert of Ike & Tina Turner at Musikhalle Hamburg, with support from Blue Magic. Kieser used two photographs that capture Tina Turner’s vigorous stage presence and combined it with two typefaces that were available from Letraset at the time: Manuscript Capitals and Herkules. The former doesn’t include any numerals. Kieser simply made them himself: the 7 appears to be composed from parts of a mirrored F and V, while the 3 is a mirrored ampersand.

The show took place fifty years ago, on November 6, 1973, promoting the album Nutbush City Limits. Three years later, Tina fled her abusive husband, filed for divorce, and launched her highly successful solo career.

Countdown (1965) and Linear (1969), two Letraset faces, used together on the sleeve of a single by Ike & Tina Turner released in West Germany in 1973.

Farewell to Tina Turner (1939–2023), whose life was pretty much the opposite of being a linear countdown.

[More info on Discogs]

The original vinyl LP cover

Private Dancer is a 1984 album from singer Tina Turner, her fifth solo album after leaving the Ike & Tina Turner duo. The album is credited with launching her to solo stardom, and produced hits like the title track and “What’s Love Got To Do With It”. It was selected by the Library of Congress in 2020 for preservation in the National Recording Registry.

While the cover images of the original vinyl LP and CD releases were significantly different, they both featured similar typography, with the exclusive use of Onyx, with a mix of roman and oblique for “Tina”. This typographical identity was carried over to posters, advertisements, single covers, tour booklets, and other contemporary materials. The track listing on the back cover was also set in Onyx.

Tina Turner died last week, aged 83.

[More info at Discogs]

Vinyl LP insert with lyrics

Vinyl LP back cover

The original CD cover

Double page from the CD booklet, with lyrics

Back cover of the CD

Print advertisement, with headline in oblique Univers Ultra Condensed and copy in Univers Condensed Oblique

Poster

45 sleeve for the “Private Dancer” single, b/w “Nutbush City Limits”

1985 souvenir program for the Private Dancer tour, with “Private Dancer Tour 1985” set in Univers Ultra Condensed.

The eleventh studio album release by Ike & Tina Turner has a double cover, each showing a portrait of the couple, with their names set in Thorowgood Sans Shaded; the album title is revealed on the inside of the gatefold: Outta Season. The music consists of a mix of original tracks and covers.

At first I thought the album artwork (shot and arranged by “Amos and Andy”) was a reference to the artwork of You Don’t Have to be Black to Love the Blues by Junior Parker – but the Ike and Tina album predates Parker’s album by three years. In turn, Parker’s album is a parody of the popular “You don’t have to be jewish” campaign for Levy’s Jewish Rye bread which ran in the 1960s–70s. It looks like the designers found some inspiration in that campaign, but what about the reversed blackface? References like the racist stereotypes of black children and adults with watermelons from the US South, and Al Jolson’s blackface are easily found in reference to this cover, adding to (at least my) confusion about what we’re looking at.

[More info on Discogs]

The track list and credits on the gatefold are set in various styles from Univers.

The original 1966 U.K. pressing

River Deep – Mountain High is a 1966 album from Ike & Tina Turner, produced by Phil Spector. It was originally issued in 1966 in the U.K. on Philles Records. Due to the failure of the title single to perform up to expectations in the U.S., the planned release of the album was cancelled. It was not issued stateside until 1969, on A&M Records.

The front cover features the artist name and album title set in Bookman Swash Italic, with a number of swashes and alternates, while the text “An Historic Recording By Phil Spector” is set in Univers Extended.

Tina Turner died last week, aged 83.

[More info at Discogs]

Back cover of the original 1966 U.K. pressing, with artists’ names and album title in Permanent Headline and Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed for the line below. Tony Hall’s liner notes are set in Century Expanded or similar; the track listing is added in Vogue Extra Bold Condensed.

The front cover of the 1969 U.S. issue, with added A&M Records logo

The back cover of the 1969 U.S. reissue. The soft bold serif at the top left is a boldened version of Post Condensed. On some pressings, it also appears on the front cover. The photograph was taken by Dennis Hopper (yes, the Dennis Hopper). Liner notes and track listing are set in Trade Gothic.

Dynamite! is the second studio album by Ike & Tina Turner, released with Sue Records in May of 1962, the year the two musicians got married in Tijuana, Mexico. That marriage didn’t last: Tina filed for divorce in 1976. In her 1986 autobiography I, Tina, she revealed that Ike was abusive throughout their marriage, which led to her suicide attempt in 1968.

Their relationship with the record company came to an end much quicker:

In November 1962, Ike and Tina filed a $330,000 joint lawsuit with Placid Music Corporation against Sue Records, Saturn Music, and Juggy Murray for “failing and refusing to give an accounting and pay certain royalties.” They also charged that Sue “withheld and concealed over $100,000” of their earnings from them.

For something more pleasant, let’s have a look at the typography. The uncredited designer brought together five different sans serifs; two from the classic American Gothic branch, and three belonging to the modernist geometric genre. The artists’ names are set in Alternate Gothic. In a self-referential manner, the title was blown to pieces by arranging condensed caps from Franklin Gothic on an shaking baselines and having lines cut through the letterforms. The explosion itself is illustrated by a starburst with six of the song names emanating on various angles, set in what looks like Metromedium No. 2.

The back cover appears to combine another two American Futura followers: while the big caps at the top are from Tempo Heavy – distinguished by the wide K, the low bar in A, and the narrow R – the track listing and the liner notes are set in Spartan, with its double-story a.

[More info on Discogs]

From Wikipedia:

The Soul of Ike & Tina Turner is the debut album by Ike & Tina Turner. It was released on the Sue Records in February 1961. The album is noted for containing the duo’s debut single “A Fool in Love” and their follow-up singles “I Idolize You” and “I’m Jealous.”

The big capitals that spell out the first names in alternating letter colors are from a Gothic that is heavier than Franklin Gothic, with an N that suffers from a too heavy diagonal. Maybe it’s from a wood typeface, or maybe it was custom drawn. The ampersand is from an unidentified source, too. It might stem from some Caslon or Baskerville.

“The Soul of” and “Turner” are in Brush Script, set on a slight angle. There are two twists: the first line features the rarely seen Th ligature that was included in the metal original, but is absent from most digitizations, with the laudable exception of ATF Brush. And “Turner” has a T that appears to be customized: in the standard glyph, the roof doesn’t extend to the right of the stem. The names of the hit singles at the top right are in Futura.

[More info on Discogs]

The back cover has the title in caps from Garamont or similar. The track list apparently pairs Vogue Extra Bold with a bold condensed style of either Futura or the virtually identical Spartan.

From Wikipedia:

Written by Spector, Jeff Barry, and Ellie Greenwich, “River Deep – Mountain High” was among the first recordings that Ike & Tina Turner did for Phil Spector’s Philles Records. Spector was well aware of Ike Turner’s controlling attitude in the studio, and therefore he drafted an unusual contract: the River Deep – Mountain High album and single would be credited to “Ike & Tina Turner”, but Ike was paid $20,000 to stay away from the studio, and only Tina Turner’s vocals would be used on the record. […]

Ike Turner remarked that he felt the record did not do well in America because the sound was “pop or white”, while Tina Turner’s voice was R&B, so that “America mixes race in it” – though the writer Michael Billig speculated that although earlier records which had mixed black singers with a white pop sound had sold well, by 1966 the black political movement was encouraging African Americans to take a pride in their own culture, and “River Deep – Mountain High” was out of step with that movement.

This is the purely typographic sleeve of a 1974 reissue from France, featuring Pioneer’s rarely seen — and slightly odd — numerals.