First released by Supraphon in Czechoslovakia in 1966, this is the cover of the 1967 issue by Crossroads, a short-lived subsidiary of Epic Records. The A-side has twelve carols composed by Benjamin Britten and performed by the Prague Radio Children’s Chorus. Arthur Honegger’s Christmas Cantata on the B-side features the Czech Philharmonic Chorus and the Kühn Children’s Chorus.

The illustrated orchestra of Santas is by Cooper Union graduate Sandy Hoffman. Art director Sid Maurer combined (too) tightly spaced Solemnis, a festive uncial by Günter Gerhard Lange for Berthold (1953), with caps from Stymie Black, Morris F. Benton’s sturdy slab for ATF (1935).

[More info on Discogs]

A purely typographic cover – if one counts the ornaments and border elements as type – for The Holly and the Ivy, an album with Christmas carols performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (today known as the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square). First released in 1960 (as ML 5592), this is the 1965 stereo reissue (as MS 6192), with unchanged cover design.

Both typefaces originated in post-WWII West Germany. The uncial is Günter Gerhard Lange’s Solemnis (Berthold, 1953) – note that the O’s in “Stereo” and “Holly” were accidentally used upside down. The condensed sans with the squarish build is Paul Renner’s Steile Futura (Bauer, 1952).

Just like Futura Display, the latter isn’t really related to Futura, but was named as such to capitalize on the popularity of Renner’s late-1920s geometric sans. Steil translates to “steep” or “abrupt”, and isn’t a term commonly used in type terminology. Bauer Alphabets in New York apparently felt the German name is rather confusing than helpful, and sold the 1950s design as Bauer Topic in the United States.

[More info on Discogs]

Starting in 1962, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company issued a series of seven annual Christmas albums. From Discogs:

The first three albums in the series were produced by Forrell, Thomas & Polack Associates, Inc. The last four, by Forell & Thomas, Inc. The manufacturer of the records is not identified explicitly. But based on the data printed on the labels and inscribed in the runout of the records, volumes 1, 2, 3 ,5 and 7 were manufactured by the custom records division of RCA Records, and Volumes 4 and 6 were manufactured by Capitol Records.

While the initial release was titled “Favorite Christmas Carols”, the following albums were named “Your Favorite Christmas Carols”, “Your Christmas Favorites”, and “Your Favorite Christmas Music”. Apart from the changing colors and credits, the basic design is always the same, depicting a large ribbon with mistletoe against an ornamental wrapping paper in the background. The title typeface is Cloister Black.

Other text on most of the covers is set in designs by Filmotype, namely Rodgers, Wasp, and Fleet. Volume 5 is an exception in that it replaces Rodgers with Caslon Bold Condensed – which was carried by Filmotype as “CA51”. Some smaller bits also use the bold weight of Trade Gothic Extended. Lastly, the text on the golden starburst stickers is in all-caps Clarendon.

The final volume features a different photo for the ribbon.

Notes from Ukraine was a concert celebrating the centennial of the famed Ukrainian carol “Shchedryk”, known worldwide as “Carol of the Bells” which took place at Carnegie Hall, New York, on December 4, 2022. 


• 2,800 people attended the concert
• 76,000 people watched online
• Over 200 media mentions in the United States, with in-depth stories published
in leading media such as – The New York Times, CNN, Opera Wire, MSNBC,
ABC News, CBS NY, and others 

• Over 150 media mentions in Ukraine

See the full case study on Behance.

“The Toreador Brass” is an alias of the Torero Band that, according to Discogs, was a “British group of studio musicians, imitating the style of Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, […] led by Alan Moorhouse”. The album was first released on Music For Pleasure in 1968.

For this 1969 U.S. release on Harmony, a budget label by Columbia Records, the unknown designer specified a festive setting using Renaissance.

This ornamented and shaded Tuscan was shown by William H. Page & Co in a 1874 specimen, including chromatic versions, see below. I’m aware of two phototype adaptations: Headliners had it under the name MP 330 as part of the Morgan Press Collection, and Solotype carried it as Rondell. Troubador JNL is a digital interpretation.

[More info on Discogs]

Chromatic Renaissance as shown by William H. Page & Co in 1874

According to Discogs, the Torero Band was a “British group of studio musicians, imitating the style of Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, […] led by Alan Moorhouse”.

Keith Davis designed the sleeve for this album with brass interpretations of Christmas carols, using a photograph by Keith Morris – and lots of Neptun. The record was released in 1968 on Music for Pleasure, located in Middlesex, England. Shown here is a pressing by their Australian branch.

[More info on Discogs]

Before Antique Olive Nord (ca. 1959), there was Filmotype Ford … and its extended sibling Filmotype Flare (ca. 1953). The extrawide heavyweight can here be seen in a version decorated with snowflakes, on the cover of a Christmas album recorded by Martha Tilton (1915–2006) and “other Great Hollywood Vocal Stars”, released by Tops Records in 1958. The lines in the multicolored bands at the right are set in Lydian Cursive and Venus Extended. Other text like “True High Fidelity!” is hand lettered.

[More info on Discogs]

Ronald Clyne was a versatile user and early adopter of typefaces, always on the hunt for the next interesting one to put to work in his cover designs for Folkways Records. For this 1967 album of traditional Christmas carols by folk singer Pete Seeger (1919–2014), he went with Basilea. Designed by Markus J. Low, it won the First Prize in VGC’s National Type Face Design Competition of 1965 and was released in 1967. The accompanying sans is Folio Light. (On the CD release, it was replaced by ITC Avant Garde Gothic.) Photography by John Vachon.

[More info on Discogs]

The credits on the back are set in Trade Gothic Extended (or similar) and Futura. The roman used for the track list is unidentified.

Variant with the photo printed in a reddish brown (FTS-32311)

License: All Rights Reserved.

On the 15th of December digital design and communications agency AKQA presented Little Wings, the real story of Carol of the Bells, working alongside Mariia and Rodion Shub, two Ukrainians temporarily displaced to the UK and Canada and featuring Kyiv’s Children’s Choir Shchedryk. For out of winter’s darkness will always come spring’s light. From the dedicated website:

Little Wings is the story of Shchedryk, known by many as the popular holiday song Carol of the Bells, but originally written by Mykola Leontovych over one hundred years ago as a traditional Ukrainian folk song heralding the coming of spring. Shchedryk’s original well-wishing lyrics tell the tale of a swallow flying between households, proclaiming the plentiful year that the family will have. Accompanied by the Shchedryk melody, Little Wings follows a lonesome swallow’s adventure to guide carol singers to a family in need of renewed hope.

Kyiv Type Foundry supported the project with two of its typefaces: KTF Compact is used for the main title. The film titles as well as the text on the website are set in KTF Forma. The poster additionally uses Dinamo’s ABC Diatype Compressed.

Source: littlewings.akqa.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: littlewings.akqa.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: littlewings.akqa.com License: All Rights Reserved.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: littlewings.akqa.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: littlewings.akqa.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: littlewings.akqa.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: littlewings.akqa.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: littlewings.akqa.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Ed Benguiat’s display Caslon with many of its swash alternate glyphs for the cover of The Perry Como Christmas Album, released by RCA Victor in 1968. The article features the catchword (or whole word ligature) from Bookman Italic.

[More info on Discogs]

From Jim’s Record Barn:

This terrifying Christmas child reminds me a bit of the kid in the film Gummo.

Why stop at the tree when you can decorate your letters with baubles, too?

This undated Dutch recording of christmas carols as performed by the children’s choir of the St. Aloysius School Hilversum was originally issued by Basart Europhon, Amsterdam. The image shows the Canadian release on Dominion.

This edition is set in Erbar-Mediäval lichtfett (1922) and Genzsch-Antiqua (1906–1910). It was printed by J.G. Oncken Nachf., G.m.b.H., Kassel, probably in the 1920s. The ad on the back cover mentions two of Polak’s pudding brands, “Mändelchen” and “Dreimühlen”.

Weihnachten im Liede is the title of a booklet with Christmas carols, produced as promotional gift by the German subsidiary of A.J. Polak, a manufacturer of custard powder, in Weener/Ems, East Frisia. There were at least four editions, each with a different cover typography.

Abraham Josef Polak founded the host company in Groningen, The Netherlands, in 1899. His uncle, Calmer Polak Gzn., had moved there in 1866 to trade in “colonial goods” and liquors, and became best known for his lemonade sirup brand “Ranja”. To distinguish the two entrepreneurs, uncle Calmer (1840–1922) was popularly called the “wet” Polak, while nephew Abraham (d. 1924) was known as the “dry” one. [De verhalen van Groningen, Joods Amsterdam] Kantoor Groningen:

During the Second World War, the German occupiers introduced the “ordinance of expulsion of Jews from the business world” which meant the end for the Polak family, since they were of Jewish origin. While they were being deported to Auschwitz to be murdered, the factory kept running under a German manager.

In the course of this “Aryanization”, Wiard Popkes, former director of the factory in Weener, not only usurped the German subsidiary, he also became the new owner of the parent company in the occupied Netherlands—much to the chagrin of the managers of German industry giant Dr. Oetker, who had hoped to take over the Dutch competitor themselves. [Dr. Oetker und der Nationalsozialismus]

The factory in Groningen had to close down in 1963, the one in Weener held out until the 1990s. The famous brand name “Polaks Mändelchen-Pudding” was acquired by RUF in Quakenbrück in 1993 and is continued to the present day.

This edition (1940s?) uses Nordland, a cursive with blackletter elements. The typeface was first cast by Trennert in 1935, based on drawings by Heinz Beck. The back cover is lettered.

Another edition printed on cheap paper (1950s?), featuring the same illustration, but another 1930s script typeface: This is Reporter, designed by Carlos Winkow and issued by the Norddeutsche Schriftgießerei in 1938. The font contained a number of ligatures. This setting uses ch and en (but not ei).

According to eichwaelder.de, this edition might have been issued in the 1960s. The serifless roman is Colonia, designed by Walter Ferdinand Kemper and released by Ludwig & Mayer in 1938.

Polskie Kolędy: Polish Christmas Carols, recorded by the “Chór Parafialny Kościoła Matki Boskiej Pocieszenia” (Parish Chorus of the Church of Our Lady of Consolation) from Williamsburg, Brookly, New York, released by Stella Records (New Jersey, USA). Undated.

The cover is signed “di Lello”—this is probably Richard DiLello who is credited with other artwork for Stella Records. The big blackletter is Engravers Old English, with the alternate y available in ATF’s version. The ogonek is likely a custom addition. The slab serif caps stem from Ludlow’s Karnak, which can easily be confused with Memphis. The informal upright script is yet unidentified—it’s a bit similar to Brody or Filmotype faces like Hamlet or Jupiter.

Christmas HQ is a website that has put together just about everything you’ll need to make your holiday amazing.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-ND.

For your typographic holiday reading, here’s a find from a flea market in Berlin-Schöneberg.

Lieder zur Weihnachtszeit (“Songs for Christmastide”) was published by Georg Kallmeyer Verlag in 1940. Despite the poor condition, it looked like a charming booklet on first sight. The title on the cover is lettering by Hans Voigt. The typeface used throughout the book is a Fraktur that Paul Koch first cut in 1933 in a single size for his Werkstatt Haus Fürsteneck in Frankfurt, based on letterforms written by his father, Rudolf Koch. In 1937, three years after Rudolf Koch’s death, the Gebrüder Klingspor type foundry made it commercially available in a range of sizes as Claudius. Here it is combined with a typeface for musical notation also cut by Koch Jr. Nicely printed in red and black, the song book is enriched with illustrations by Heinrich Pauser, another artist of the Haus zum Fürsteneck workshop and a student of Koch Sr.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-ND.

Illustrations are credited to Heinrich Pauser, who also designed typefaces. His debut, Semper-Antiqua, was released the same year. The pen script Petra followed in 1954. The booklet was printed by August Osterrieth.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-ND.

The table of contents reveals that the numerals in Claudius are not tabular.

As soon as one starts reading, one is painfully reminded that the heyday of this workshop in the tradition of the Arts and Crafts movement coincided with Nazism, and that its members allowed those in power to coopt their talents for propaganda purposes. As beautiful as Claudius and the two-colored musical notation might be, the joy is spoiled by the content which is drenched in the unholy zeitgeist.

Editor Ilse Lang’s foreword was written on Christmas 1939, only a few months after Nazi Germany had invaded Poland and started the Second World War. The introductory text vaguely hints at the war (“the moving events of our day”), and the cultural revolution of the first years of the Third Reich (“all the songs that have been created over the past few years in addition to the old familiar ones, songs that will gradually feel equally familiar to us”). For a compilation of Christmas songs, there are indeed exceptionally few references to the biblical nativity story, or Christian elements in general. “Gott” (God) and “Engel” (angel) appear only twice, and are outnumbered by terms like “Stern” (star), “Licht” (light), “Nacht” (night), “Feuer” (fire), “Wald” (woods), etc. Santa Claus is replaced by a pagan “Sunnwendmann” (Solstice man). Instead of Mary, there is “Frau Holle” (Mother Hulda). And there certainly is not a single mention of the Jewish baby named Jesus.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-ND.

The notes with square heads are printed black on red staves. Hans Reichardt lists Paul Koch’s typeface for musical notation in his pdf for the Klingspor Museum simply as “Musiknoten”. Koch wrote about this topic in articles for Imprimatur (“Neugestaltung des Notenbildes in Handschrift und Druck”, 1933) and Klimschs Jahrbuch (“Die Musiknoten im Buchdruck”, 1940).

Several of the included carols are by Nazi songwriter Hans Baumann who also wrote “Es zittern die morschen Knochen” (“The frail bones tremble”), the official marching song of the Reichsarbeitsdienst. In “Kind, die Sterne gehen weit” he prepares the German youth for the deprivations of the war years to come and calls for soldierly obedience: “Once you grow up you will need strong hands to master the hardships. A cold home and hard bread – stop asking questions.” His “Hohe Nacht der klaren Sterne” is a prime example for the new carols of the 1930s that should replace Christian songs like “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht” (“Silent Night”). Its success was based on the fact that it brought together key concepts of Nazi ideology such as “nature mysticism, mother cult and new birth” (Esther Gajek, see Michael Fischer’s entry in liederlexikon.de) without being clumsily obtrusive. In fact, the song continued to be popular after the collapse of Nazi Germany and is still sometimes performed in the modern day. The booklet ends on a belligerent note. “Gar fröhlich zu singen” (“To be sung gleefully”) predicts what to expect from the new year: “Viel Kampf, Heil und Segen und Arbeit fürwahr” (“Much fighting, salvation, blessings, and labor for sure.”) If you want to read more about Christmas in the Nazi regime, I recommend Faith Thomas’ feature for DW Online.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-ND.

It used to be common to mark omitted double letters with an overbar, especially for ‘mm’ and ‘nn’. These abbreviations come in handy when lyrics have to match the musical notes, see “da kom[m]t er her”.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-ND.

The second line features an oddity of German orthography as used until the reform of 1996. When words are hyphenated at the ‘ck’ digraph, the spelling changes to ‘k-k’ (Brücken → Brük-ken).

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-ND.

Like most metal typefaces, Claudius has compact umlauts with integrated dots (or strokes), see “Äpfel”. It comes with a number of ligatures, some of which can be observed here (ch ck ſi ſſ ſt). See the full glyph set on Gerald Lange’s Flickr page.