Anaheim, California

The Great Wolf Lodge logo uses Caslon Antique, a decorative, distressed serif typeface designed in the 1890s by Berne Nadall.

Great Wolf Lodge is a chain of family resort hotels and indoor water parks in the United States and Canada. Started as Black Wolf Lodge in 1997, the first park was purchased by The Great Lakes Companies Inc. who changed the name to Great Wolf Lodge in 2000.

Mason, Ohio

Mason, Ohio

Concord, North Carolina

Grapevine, Texas

Grand Mound, Washington

Niagara Falls, Ontario

Book cover

Good‑bye, Curtis is a children’s picture book written by Kevin Henkes and published by Greenwillow Books. The story follows Curtis, a neighborhood mail carrier, on his final day of work after 42 years of service. As he makes his last rounds, he is met with gifts, hugs, and a surprise community party. The narrative highlights themes of gratitude, community, and everyday dedication. Illustrations by Margaret Dyer add warmth and charm to the farewell scene.

The cover typography uses the Equinox typeface. Its clean, geometric letterforms provide a modern and approachable design that complements the book’s tone.

Title page

Predator is the third book in Wilbur Smith’s Hector Cross series, co-written by Diana Thomas under the pen name Tom Cain, and published by William Morrow in 2016. The first-edition jacket was designed by Richard L. Aquan using Shàngó Gothic Medium for the author names. The title appears to be in stretched, stroked and weathered LP Saturnia Bold, and the small text in Trade Gothic Bold Condensed No. 20.

About the book:

Former operative Major Hector Cross must face off against a pair of lethal enemies and prevent an international catastrophe in this gripping contemporary adventure-thriller—perfect for fans of Clive Cussler, Ted Bell, and Vince Flynn—from the legendary worldwide bestselling author of Desert God and Golden Lion.

One of the most formidable fighters in the world, ex-SAS warrior and former private security consultant Major Hector Cross has survived explosive tangles with depraved enemies—warlords, pirates, and arms dealers—from the Middle East to the heart of Africa. Now, Cross must take the law into his own hands once again to stop a vengeful old enemy who has resurfaced—and hunt down a deadly new nemesis in pursuit of global domination.

The New Mystery is an anthology of short stories by 42 different writers, edited by Jerome Charyn and published in 1993 by Penguin Books under the Dutton imprint. The jacket was designed by Dean Motter, with illustrations by Vidal Centeno.

The title is primarily in stretched Arcadia, although the N, W and M appear to be derived from Washington. Futura, also stretched, is used for “New and Classic Stories by” and “The International Association of Crime Writers [...]”, and Senator is used for “and 30 other major crime writers” and the editor’s credit. The authors’ names are in Industria.

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

License: All Rights Reserved.

The “Pussy Wagon” is a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck that features in Quentin Tarantino’s 2003 film Kill Bill: Volume 1. The pink lettering on its rear – replicated in the keyring pendant – is in a groovy 1960s style that, among other things, was used for cheesy pulp fiction with sexist tropes.

In an act of reframing through affirmation that’s typical of Tarantino, the bright yellow vehicle with the tacky name (and matching license plate) serves Uma Thurman as Beatrix “the Bride” Kiddo to launch her “roaring rampage of revenge” against the men (and women) who did her wrong.

The font in use probably is Action Is, an all-caps freebie from 1998. It was drawn by Jeff Levine based on an application of either Caruso Roxy or its close follower Holiday. The Identifont blog has the font’s origin story:

While working in the recording industry for Steve Alaimo, former singer and co-host of the 1960s TV show Where the Action Is, Jeff noticed an interesting typeface spelling out the show’s title on a photo album Steve kept from those years. Tracing the letters which existed on that page, and creating his own characters for those that were missing, the font was digitized by Brad Nelson of Brain Eaters Fonts and released as freeware under the name Action Is.

The iconic prop was subsequently produced as fan item, in the form of stickers, patches, keyring pendant, model cars, and more.

It has also been quoted more than once: in Tarantino’s Death Proof from 2007, a 1972 Ford Mustang is labeled “Lil’ Pussy Wagon”. The car again serves women to take revenge on a misogynistic murderer. And in 2009, the original Pussy Wagon made a cameo in the music video for Lady Gaga’s 2009 song “Telephone” featuring Beyoncé.

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Quentin Tarantino used to drive the Pussy Wagon himself. Via the Quentin Tarantino Fan Club: “The thing about the Pussy Wagon is, whenever I drove it on the freeway, everyone recognized it’s me. Everyone recognized the Pussy Wagon. And then it would be a chain, because people would drive alongside me and try to talk to me.”

Source: www.etsy.com PatchEire. License: All Rights Reserved.

Embroidered iron-on/sew-on patch

Source: www.amazon.co.uk License: All Rights Reserved.

Box for a Pussy Wagon truck replica in the scale of 1:32

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Mary Elizabeth Winstead in her role as Lee Montgomery, sitting on the “Lil’ Pussy Wagon” in the second segment of Death Proof (2007)

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

Stills from the music video to “Telephone”: Lady Gaga leaves prison …

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

… and dances with Beyoncé in front of the Pussy Wagon.

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

Caroline Records used Neue Helvetica 95 Black for their logo between 1997 and 2019.

Ben Folds Five is an American alternative and piano rock trio formed from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, named after the lead singer Ben Folds. They formed in 1993 and were active through 2000, reuniting in 2011. The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner was their third studio album, released on the 27th of April, 1999. This was their last album before their break-up.

The typeface used across the album cover is a bold Garamond – a digital version of ATF Garamond or Garamond No. 3, possily American Garamond – whilst the track list and other details on the back are set in Bank Gothic.

[More info on Discogs]

CD label. The “No Turn” sign in the background also uses Bank Gothic whilst everything else is in Garamond.

Back cover of the CD case. The text relating to Sony Music’s ownership is written in Helvetica Condensed.

Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies. Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought was published by Basic Books in 1995. In the book,

Douglas Hofstadter and other members of the Fluid Analogies Research Group [are] exploring the mechanisms of intelligence through computer modeling. It contends that the notions of analogy and fluidity are fundamental to explain how the human mind solves problems and to create computer programs that show intelligent behavior. It analyzes several computer programs that members of the group have created over the years to solve problems that require intelligence.

For the title, the unknown jacket designer brought together two script typefaces designed by Friedrich Peter, a German-born artist who emigrated to Vancouver in 1957. The lowercase characters are from Vivaldi, “the second Latin display typeface designed in Canada” [Canadian Typography Archives], released as one of 15 award winning type face designs in a competition sponsored by VGC in 1966. The capitals are from the exuberantly ornate Magnificat, also a winner in a type design competition, this time in one that was held by Letraset in 1973. The subtitle is set in Hermann Zapf’s Optima, unfortunately with faux small caps.

The illustration is taken from the Letter Spirit project:

The aim is to model how the 26 lowercase letters of the roman alphabet can be rendered in many different but internally coherent styles. The program addresses two important aspects of letterforms: the categorical sameness possessed by letters belonging to a given category (e.g., ‘a’) and the stylistic sameness possessed by letters belonging to a given style (e.g., Helvetica). Starting with one or more seed letters representing the beginnings of a style, the program will attempt to create the rest of the alphabet in such a way that all 26 letters share that same style, or spirit.

For the friends of trivia: a copy of Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies was the first book ever sold by Amazon.com.

Detail

Source: www.abebooks.com Cross Genre Books (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Ellison Wonderland is a collection of short stories by Harlan Ellison (1934–2018). First published in the United States in 1962, this is the jacket for the first UK edition, issued by Millington in 1979.

Instead of working with an illustrator, designer Lorie Epstein opted for a purely typographic approach featuring Quartermaine. She separated the thin and thick strokes of Stuart Longley’s open, dimensional unicase typeface and gave them different colors: blue and purple for the author’s name, and orange and pink for the title.

The Science Fiction Book Club mention in the bottom right corner is set in ITC Avant Garde Gothic, with its alternate e and faux small caps.

[More info on ISFDB]

London-based studio Family (and friends) refreshed London Tea for Cafédirect with a playfully refined identity built around a hand-illustrated LT monogram. Bright, youthful colors distinguish the different flavors, while the typography remains simple and straightforward, letting the artwork take the spotlight.

The system pairs Gopher, a reverse-contrast modern sans serif by Adam Ladd Design, with the geometric sans serif Qanelas by Radomir Tinkov. Together, they balance personality with precision—modern, readable, and full of warmth.

See more of the case study on Family (and friends).

Heartbeat (November 1981) utilises contoured Helvetica and Eurostile Extended for the album title and artist names respectively.

Chris & Cosey, sometimes known as Carter Tutti, are a musical duo formed in 1981, consisting of couple Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, both previously members of industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle. Shown here are the covers of their first four albums, released between 1981 and 1985 on Rough Trade.

[More info on Discogs]

Trance (May 1982), featuring Caslon Antique for the title and artist name, and Melior for the name of their side project at the time, Creative Technology Institute (CTI)

Songs of Love & Lust (January 1984) features Phyllis, alongside University Roman.

Techno Primitive (stylized as Technø Primitive, 1985) keeps things simple; using only Antique Olive in two weights, Black and Nord.

A three-page magazine ad for Namco Museum Vol. 1, a collection of 1980s arcade games released in 1996 (1995 in Japan) for the Sony PlayStation. The ad pokes fun at the then-contemporary 1990s gaming culture, including the typography of video game ads.

The bulk of the text is in Resbaloso, with several other fonts mixed in: Crackhouse (“WEIRD TYPE”), Escalido Streak (“screaming guys”), Burnout (“ViRtUaL ReALitY”), Trajan (“CLICHÉS”), Nuptial Script (“self-righteous”), Matrix Tall (“MULTI-MILLION-DOLLAR”), Motion Bold (“Toilet”), and one unidentified font (“3D”).

The small legal text at the bottom of the last page is in Industria.

All-caps Friz Quadrata Bold for Heartwork, the fourth studio album by English extreme metal band Carcass. The sculpture depicted in the cover art, Life Support 1993, was designed by H.R. Giger, and is an update of a sculpture he created in the late 1960s.

[More info on Discogs]

Behind the Light is a 1992 album by Japanese musician Osamu Kitajima.

Post-Antiqua is used with squeezed proportions and faux small caps for Kitajima’s name, and with stacked letters for the title. The name of publisher Higher Octave Music is added in two weights of ITC Korinna.

Takafumi Maeda of Cracker Design, Inc. is credited with the original art direction and Dee Westlund for that of the US release. Murry Whiteman at L&W Design worked on the US design. The washi was painted by Ikko Fukunaga and the portrait is by Fred Ohringer.

[More info on Discogs]

He’s not so good in a crowd but when you get him alone
You’d be surprised,
He isn’t much at a dance but when he takes you home
You’d be surprised

Sheet music of Irving Berlin’s 1919 song released to capitalize on the success of a 1940 cover by Bonnie Baker with Orrin Tucker and His Orchestra.

The song title and songwriter are in Phenix American, with faux small caps, while “By” is added in Quick. All other text is hand lettering.

After 20 years, the elusive vanity card of T.A.T. Communications Company has been found in full. The multiline letters for “TAT” are most likely custom, although they maybe took inspiration from typefaces like Yagi Double or Stripes. The other text is set in Futura with faux small caps. Shortly after, there is also a CBS logo set in ITC Grizzly.

T.A.T. Communications Company was an American television production company started in 1974. It was renamed as Embassy Communications, Inc. in 1982 and later went by the name ELP Communications.

Front cover, showing Modula Serif, Oakland 6 (now called Lo-Res 9 Wide Alternate), and Memphis.

MegaTech was a UK video game magazine dedicated to the Sega Mega Drive ("Sega Genesis" in North America), which was published from December 1991 to July 1995. The first issue was edited by Paul Glancey, with Jeff Zie as art editor. Glancey and Zie had previously produced The Complete Guide to Mega Drive.

The logo uses Modula Serif, which is also used elsewhere on the cover and for some of the interior text. (This logo was retained until issue 17, when a new logo was adopted.) Oakland and Oblong also form part of the magazine's identity. All three of these fonts were designed by Zuzana Licko.

Text fonts include Memphis, Helvetica, ITC Kabel, and Century Expanded. An unidentified Japanese font is used on the cover for the word メガテケ (Megateke).

For more information about MegaTech, see "The MegaTech story" at Forgotten Worlds.

Page 3, showing Modula Serif, Oakland 6, and Memphis.

Page 12, showing Modula Serif, Oblong (in the “Hyper Hyper” badge), Oakland 6, and Helvetica Bold.

Page 15, showing Modula Serif, Oakland 6, Oakland 10, Oblong and Memphis.

Page 17, showing Modula Serif and ITC Kabel.

Page 20, showing Modula Serif, Oakland 6, and Century Expanded.

A two-page magazine ad for the computer game The Legend of Kyrandia: Malcolm’s Revenge, published in vol. 2, no. 1 of PC Gamer (US), dated January 1995.

The tagline is in Matrix Inline Script, while the bulk of the text is in Deepdene, with (faux) small caps and italics. The small text at the bottom of the second page is in Helvetica Narrow and ITC Avant Garde Gothic.

This is the only solo studio album by Japanese drummer Tatsuo Hayashi. The first half of the album contains drum beats, while the latter half includes jazz compositions by him.

The album title and the artist's name at the album cover are set in caps of VGC’s Rusiñol, originally released as Cursiva Rusiñol by F.T. Nacional. The tracklist at the back cover uses Eurostile, and the text below the picture is set in Univers.

Design by Michiko Oshima 大島美智子, with photography by Takumi Uchida 内田 巧.

[More info on Discogs]

Volume 11, Number 99 from Spring 1982 was the first issue of The Bonemaker to feature the logo in Desdemona. Other text on the cover is set in Helvetica and Times New Roman.

The Veteran-Cycle Club was founded on 25 June 1955 to promote the riding and conservation of older cycles as well as the study of cycles and cycling history. Today the Club has over 2,500 members, making it the largest of its kind in the world.

Desdemona Solid has been used since 1982 for the club’s magazine The Boneshaker. The logo and Veteran-Cycle Club title were designed by long-term member and graphic designer Dave Westwood, who hand-kerned in Letraset in those days. As of 2024, 6,000 copies of the magazine are printed. It’s now edited by another member, Ian Gunn, and the layout is done at Lavenham Press.

Desdemona is also used for other publications, e.g. the Club’s Yearbook. Quaint Gothic SG, a digital version based on the same Victorian source as Desdemona, is also used, as that has a proper lower case (not pictured here).

Volume 23, Number 225 from Summer 2024 is the most recent issue of The Boneshaker. The secondary typeface here is Gill Sans.

From Genius:

Japan Best is Mariah Carey’s 4th compilation album and her 4th greatest hits album. This collection is unique, as it is a lineup of hits for the Japanese market.

Japan has always loved Mariah. Her releases are some of the best-selling albums over there. Mariah’s 1998 compilation album #1’s remains the best-selling release of all time by a foreign act in Japan.

The typography uses both the Medium and Light style of Largo. In contrast to the former, the latter features no top serif on the A.

[More info on Discogs]