Poster designs for Daughters of the Forest. A story of entanglements: between humans and mushrooms; the visible and the invisible; generational knowledge and modern science. This sci-fi documentary invites us to reconsider the experiences of both human and non-human inhabitants of our world.

This paperback edition of Invaders from the Infinite was published as Ace Science Fiction Classic M-154 about 1966, with cover art by Gray Morrow. John W. Campbell’s science fiction novel was first published by Gnome Press and Fantasy Press in 1961.

[More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.last.fm License: All Rights Reserved.

Caruso Roxy in yellow caps and with lots of its swirling glyphs for Organ in Orbit, a 1965 album by jazz space-age organist Julius Goldberg (1915–1977), better known as Sir Julian Gould, or just Sir Julian. The uncredited cover designer went with a very literal translation of the title. It seems likely that the sans used for the track names is from the PLINC library as well. With the top-heavy S, Pacella Electra is a contender.

[More info on Discogs]

Conjuring the Void. The Art of Black Holes is the latest book by Lynn Gamwell, with a foreword by Neil deGrasse Tyson. From MIT Press:

An evocative and richly illustrated exploration of modern art about black holes.

Inescapable and mysterious, black holes have long captured the imagination of visual artists, even before their existence was first confirmed in 1971. In Conjuring the Void, Lynn Gamwell explores this fascinating intersection of art and science. Starting with a chronological description of key developments in the science of black holes, Gamwell builds a foundation for the reader through visualizations of black holes created by scientists, depicting how a black hole’s extreme gravity affects visible objects in its vicinity. From there, the book explores how artists have addressed the challenge of visualizing black holes by developing new methods of working with diverse materials, including a black paint that absorbs 99.96% of visible light.

The book (hardcover with jacket, 9″×12″) was designed by Marquand Books. The cover illustration is by Melissa Weiss. Titles are set in Gatch and captions in Stratos. Oculi is used for body copy.

SCELBI Computer Consulting, Inc., was (briefly and significantly) a 1970s microcomputer manufacturer but was mostly known in that era for its technical publications. The cover work for some of the early books features plenty of fun with photo lettering. The company name was often rendered in Koloss, as it is here. Helvetica is the baseline text choice, and Avant Garde Gothic with multiple ligatures is used for the title.

The Galaxy game was a space conquest adventure, in the vein of the classic Star Trek games from early computing. The books (available for the Intel 8008/8080 systems as well as the Motorola 6800) contained the whole game, reproduced as machine language code with explanations for both gameplay and how the program worked.

SCELBAL was a version of BASIC for SCELBI’s own computer system, and the title of its book is set in Baby Arbuckle, a follower of Baby Fat.

The company’s First Book of Computer Games is less aesthetically coherent. It repeats the Helvetica and Koloss, then throws Neil Bold, Pioneer, and Dubbeldik into the mix.

More on the SCELBI computer in the context of early micro computing can be found here, while a number of SCELBI’s books are available at the SCELBI Museum and the Internet Archive.

Quirinale is the typeface used for a 1980 album of Gustav Holst’s The Planets as performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra with conductor Seiji Ozawa (1935–2024). The standard cover features a photograph by Ruud Nooy, showing a golden statue of Mercury with winged hat and money bag in the right hand.

The same typography in a different arrangement was used for an alternate cover, this time together with an image of Earth, Moon (?), and a space probe, possibly Pioneer 10.

[More info on Discogs]

Alternate cover made as a promo and/or for the Japanese market

Source: www.facebook.com Haibin Yin (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

The Berliner Philharmoniker under conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908–1989) performed Gustav Holst’s The Planets in January 1981. The recording was released by Deutsche Grammophon, with a cover design by Werner Koberstein and art direction from Lutz Bode.

The montage of the Saturnian system is a composite of several images taken by NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft during its Saturn encounter in November 1980. It’s not correct in scale or perspective. The moon at the top left is Dione, the one in the center is Mimas with its prominent Herschel crater, and the larger one to the right is Tethys. The reddish one at the bottom left is Titan, and the remaining one should be either Enceladus or Rhea.

Multiple editions have been released over the years, in various color variants. The primary typeface for all of them is American Gothic. This variation on Engravers Gothic [edit: rather Copperplate Gothic, see comments] was drawn by Vladimir Andrich for Alphatype in 1967.

[More info on Discogs]

Source: www.deezer.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.deutschegrammophon.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.ebay.com wiki_records_store. License: All Rights Reserved.

Herbert von Karajan’s recording of The Planets with the Vienna Philharmonic was first released by Decca in 1962. The 1973 reissue on their Ace of Diamonds label comes with one of the wackier cover designs made for Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite: the planets are represented by floating heads of the eponymous Roman deities. Illustrator Christos added them to a photo of the Trifid Nebula. Saturn looks pretty annoyed by the never-ending rainbow carousel rotating in front of his nose.

The typography brings together two staples of the 1970s: Neil Bold and Stop. In the latter, the H doesn’t have a stem at the right. This unconventional feature was “fixed” by the cover designer, so the title effectively reads “THIE PLANETS”. Other examples for the same intervention include the Thompson Twins logo and Gagosian Gallery’s Crash.

[More info on Discogs]

The trilingual liner notes on the back are set in IBM’s Theme proportional typewriter face.

This 1975 reissue of Gustav Holst’s The Planets as performed by the London Symphony Orchestra under Malcolm Sargent was produced by American variety label Sine Qua Non under license from London Records.

The cover art features a view of multiple celestial bodies that seems to be too good to be believable: Earth rises large over the horizon of its moon (?) in the foregroud, with Saturn directly behind it. For good measure, this artistic perspective serendipitously captures a partial eclipse further away.

The title typography features the rarely seen Avanti Caps, issued by Californian phototype company Lettergraphics by 1967.

Compare to Decca’s 1954 cover.

[More info on Discogs]

Telarc’s 1986 release of The Planets as recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the guidance of André Previn (1929–2019) has a cover that depicts the planets – and not only the featured seven, but all nine planets of our solar system, including Earth and Pluto.

Cover design by RasicArt with an illustration by A.I.R. Studio Inc. and art direction by Ray Kirschensteiner (1942–2021). The featured typeface is Germanic Sans. Designed by Acey Cypres for Headliners in 1970, it’s similar to Harpers, which was also used for an album cover for The Planets.

[More info on Discogs]

When Classics for Pleasure reissued the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s recording of The Planets in the early 1970s, Hellenic Wide as used in 1960 didn’t cut it anymore. Cover designer Jack Wood looked for something more futuristic, and settled on Ben Bold. This choice may have been inspired by its use for The Sky at Night 3, a book published by the BBC in 1970.

The illustration shows the Apollo CSM with our Blue Planet in the background – an image likely influenced by the iconic Earthrise photograph taken on Christmas Eve 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission.

[More info on Discogs]

Source: archive.org Internet Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.

Harpers is a geometric sans that hasn’t been featured on Fonts In Use before. Designed by artist and illustrator Adrian George (1944–2021) for the British edition of Harper’s Bazaar, it was shown in the Modern Publicity yearbook of 1969 under the name Harper. The typeface with the long extenders was available from London-based Face Photosetting and appears in their catalogs as Harpers. Shin Oka, who refers to the typeface as Bazaar, made a digitization in January 2019.

The lighter weights of Germanic Sans (Headliners, c.1970), a related design in two widths and several weights, come pretty close, see for example the G with large aperture and low bar, the angled e, the g with semi-circle descender and angled ear, and the lazy s/S.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Glyph set of Harpers from a c.1981 Face catalog

No designer/typographer is credited. The illustration by Chesley Bonestell (1888–1986) is titled Saturn as it appears in the dark sky of its satellite Japetus and was first shown in Life magazine, May 29, 1944. Palace Script is used for the import note on the golden sticker.

This recording of The Planets by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Bernard Haitink (1929–2021) was issued by Philips Records in 1970. From Geoffrey Crankshaw’s liner notes:

“The Planets” suite was composed between 1914 and 1917 and received its first public performance in 1918 under Adrian Boult. Holst was always keen on astrology and the idea of a musical representation of the different “characters” of the planets held irresistible attraction for him. But there was much more to this vast conception than the mere satisfaction of an astrological whim. The work would never have held such wide appeal if its content had been limited to celestial portraiture. Deeper issues are involved. Holst was a man of vast culture, rich humanity, and powerfully experienced national affections. He was an expert in Sanskrit literature, an enthusiast for English folk-music and, withal, a visionary. All these facets of his protean make-up are fused in the unique totality of “The Planets.” For the most remarkable aspect of the work is its universality. The seven movements combine, though with no thematic linkage, to produce an effect far greater than consideration of each part would suggest. As the stillness of Neptune’s closing bars draws us towards infinity we feel that a vast journey has transpired – and, even more significantly – that a wider exploration awaits us.

This recording is the first to use the newly revised score, published in 1969 by Messrs Curwen and Sons, which incorporates amendments made by the composer himself on the margins of his own score. These are mainly concerned with the dynamics, and represent the fruits of experience in the handling of the vast orchestral tissue. Even more recent corrections — including one vital “wrong note” — are listed on a slip issued with the new edition.

[More info on Discogs]

This cover is for the 1960 US reissue (EMI-Capitol) of the 1958 UK release (His Master’s Voice) of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Gustav Holst’s The Planets, conducted by Malcolm Sargent. The image doesn’t depict any of the featured planets, though. If I’m not mistaken, the shown galaxy isn’t even the Milky Way, but Messier 81, also known as Bode’s Galaxy.

The title has lowercase letters from Hellenic Wide, arranged on a bouncing baseline. While the line at the bottom is set in all-caps Stymie, “HOLST” is in Stymie’s precursor, Litho Antique. The stereo note at the top features Venus Bold Extended.

[More info on Discogs]

The self-titled debut album from April 1978 was designed by Zoran Busic with art by Rene Zamic.

Record collector, DJ and musicologist Klaus Hiltscher on Saga’s debut album:

In Germany the most sold Saga LP. I like this one because you hear also some rock guitars. In later LPs was the keyboards very dominant! “Humble Stance” is a very significant song for Saga, like “Satisfaction” for the Stones. To me it was the last LP which I really heard. In that year we opened our record shop ROCK ON, from then on I mostly heard Punk/Metal or New Wave like Gary Numan.

The cover established Solemnis as the typeface closely associated with the Canadian band’s early years. For the follow-up, Images at Twilight, the festive uncial by Günter Gerhard Lange was also used for the album title.

The track list on the back is set in Friz Quadrata, mostly in all caps.

The cover for Images at Twilight from May 1979 was again designed by Busic, this time with art by Tony Roberts.

Tracklist and credits on the back are set in Trump-Mediäval Italic.

Silent Knight was released in November 1980. Busic collaborated with Roberts another time. Solemnis made way for Parsons.

Editorial New is the primary typeface used by Comet, the new browser by Perplexity. The logo is based on FK Grotesk, which is also used on the landing page together with FK Display and Berkeley Mono.

From Studio Freight’s case study:

With an AI-powered answer engine that delivers concise, cited responses instead of endless, paid-for links, Perplexity was already disrupting how we find information. When they approached us to help launch Comet, they were looking to go even further with a complete browser experience.

But the product was still in the conceptual stages. No demo. No feature list. No wireframes. Just a vision of more accessible knowledge with more reliable references. The challenge wasn't explaining a product but capturing a possibility.

We worked closely with Henry Modisett and Phi Hoang, the Heads of Design and Brand Experience, to define the direction through shared references and mutual trust. The collaborative process felt less like following a roadmap and more like stargazing — exploring possibilities until patterns emerged.

We took a simple idea seriously as the visual language developed naturally around cosmic themes. Planets became vessels for showcasing potential features. Parabolic lines, inspired by orbital paths, created paths for motion throughout the system and distinguished Comet's identity from the parent brand. Typography came alive with variable weights that expand on hover, inviting curiosity and suggesting deeper discovery with each interaction.

The website's visual journey moves from space to Earth – bringing anywhere to here. We start among stars then descend groundward as users scroll. The announcement video reverses this path, lifting viewers from familiar surroundings toward cosmic possibility before landing on the call to action. Together they form a perfect loop: explore the site, watch the video, then continue where you left off.

AI-generated imagery, created in Perplexity's distinctive style, forms the backdrop while archival footage grounds the experience. Grainy images of industry, nature, and humanity connect the ephemeral to the tangible, speaking to real-world applications. The logo animation opens like a book to a new page, revealing the product as if turning to an unwritten chapter.

Comet is newly launched and will continue evolving. But the foundation is set — a gateway to a browsing experience that feels less like searching and more like discovering.

From WRWTFWW Records:

Music For A Cosmic Garden is a collaborative album by Japanese ambient/environmental legend Takashi Kokubo (Ion Series) and Italian & Swiss trombonist Andrea Esperti (Esperti Project).

Recorded during the heights of the pandemic and completed in February 2021, the splendid ethereal soundscape created by Kokubo and Esperti is available in limited double LP, digipack CD, as well as digital.

For fans of environmental, ambient, cosmic escapes, the works of Midori Takada, Hiroshi Yoshimura, and Satoshi Ashikawa, meditative atmospherics, and gardening in space.

Cover design by Nicolas Eigenheer featuring Void by Malte Bentzen, released by Optimo.
Art cover drawing by Martial Derry.

A spoken-word album with three stories by English science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, “Transit of Earth”, “The Nine Billion Names of God” and “The Star”, read by the author and interspersed with Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. The typography inside the blue sky of Chesley Bonestell’s cover art features Chevalier, a calligraphic typeface released by VGC.

[More info on Discogs]

Detail of the typography

Astrapi is a French biweekly magazine for children aged 7–11, published by Bayard Éditions. Borel was used for these scientific illustrations in Astrapi № 1019, September 2023.

Ronan Space Systems is a Canadian space startup focused on designing, developing, and building launch-ready technology for the challenges of tomorrow’s space industry. Founded by Andrew Ronan and Sarah Thompson, the company is driven by a bold ambition: to shape the future of humanity beyond Earth.

The visual identity was developed by Zak:

We positioned Ronan as a pioneer with perspective; a daring voice in a new era of cosmic exploration. Inspired by ancient petroglyphs, the team was passionate about doing something different – about leaving behind a mark that reflects our ever-evolving humanity.

The brand we created speaks with a strange but optimistic voice. Its visual language is organic and adaptable, evoking both the past and the far future. The result is a brand that feels undeniably Ronan.

The brand typography uses the Extended widths of PP Monument by Pangram Pangram, which has recently grown to count five widths, each in nine weights plus italics. The complementary monospaced sans serif is Basis Grotesque Mono [see comments].

As possibly the largest hackathon ever held in China, AdventureX is deeply rooted in the local landscape, committed to amplifying the power of youth-driven technological creativity. In July 2024, 200 young innovators emerged from over a thousand applicants. In just five days, they not only launched over 50 promising projects, but also continuously redefined what it means to “create”.

The visual inspiration of AdventureX 2025 comes from the picture of meteor fragments splashed by SpaceX rockets, symbolizing the afterglow of exploration and the continuation of innovation. In the deep picture like the universe, countless high-speed light spots pass through the night sky, symbolizing teenagers from different backgrounds and skills - they meet briefly like meteors, but in a limited time they collide, burst, create, and light up the direction of the future.

Besign has designed a visual guidance system for all participants for AdventureX. The system uses high-saturation color blocks to mark the reachable space, and uses 3D modeling maps to assist information transmission. While giving priority to function, taking into account the visual aesthetics, the signboard adopts high-contrast typesetting, auxiliary color point navigation, icons to strengthen spatial semantics, and greatly improves the efficiency of path recognition and the speed of action decision-making through distance and estimated time prompts.

Continuing the Dune-style font tradition in 2024, Besign designed a new brand typeface Orbix, named after the Latin orbis, which means ring, orbit and universe. This minimalist science fiction style font adopts a softer curvature and geometric structure, integrating modern and future languages, echoing the scientific and technological ideals and the spirit of unknown exploration carried by the key visual. Orbix has been officially open sourced to GitHub before the AdventureX 2025 event, and logged in to Besign Foundry, providing free-to-use and expandable text expression tools for young designers and developers around the world.