Benguiat Charisma Script in use

The New Trumpet album art

Florian Hardwig — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 18:50:39 +0000

Contributed by Florian Hardwig

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

The New Trumpet is an album with “works for trumpet with tape and piano”, by
Peter Maxwell Davies, Lucia Dlugoszewski, William Hellermann, Gerard Schwarz, and Ursula Oppens. It was released by Nonesuch Records in 1972. The cover design is by Jo Ann Gruber, with art by Gene Szafran and art direction by Robert L. Heimall.

The typeface chosen for the title is a then recent release by Photo-Lettering. Printed in a brassy yellow, West Buggie perfectly represents the theme: not only do its bracketed serifs resemble a trumpet’s bell, the high contrast of its letterforms also echoes the thick and thin parts of the instruments. Gruber arranged the three lines so that the two initials t’s as well as the two e’s of the first and second word are aligned.

[More info on Discogs]

Detail: musicians and titles are set in LSC Condensed.

The call to action on the inner sleeve uses contoured Benguiat Charisma Script.

Source: www.ebay.com crisgabilu14_9 (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

The New Journalism by Tom Wolfe, Harper & Row paperback edition

Florian Hardwig — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 16:09:51 +0000

Contributed by Florian Hardwig

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

A trichromatic setting of the bottom-heavy Charisma, using its Shaded Contour C style with red letter bodies, a yellow contour and a blue shade, for the title of The New Journalism. The handwritten-looking serifless roman is York.

Charisma was designed by Ed Benguiat (1927–2020) and made available through Photo-Lettering by 1971. Letraset’s Candice (1976) is a close follower. York is the first published typeface design by Georg Salden (b. 1930). It was released by VGC as one the 15 winning entries in a competition held in 1966.

The illustration uses a motif that goes back to M.C. Escher’s Drawing Hands from 1948.

The design of the book’s interior is credited to Gloria Adelson, but the cover is likely by someone else.

Source: www.abebooks.com Southampton Books. License: All Rights Reserved.

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

Caravelle beer cans

Swiss Typefaces — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 11:50:27 +0000

Contributed by Swiss Typefaces

Source: caravellebrewery.com © Caravelle Brewery. License: All Rights Reserved.

Caravelle is a restaurant located in Barcelona’s Raval neighbourhood that serves brunch, dinner and smokehouse dishes as well as speciality coffee, and their own range of beers.

In 2017, Caravelle commissioned Hey Studio to create the label for their first range of craft beers. In 2020 Caravelle moved the brewery to a larger site to keep up with ever growing demand. At the same time Hey Studio also expanded the original design system with a range of four new craft beers. All of the labels are very colorful and displaying some abstract shapes reminiscing of Op Art. The logotype and beer labels are always set in Suisse Int’l, bringing consistency to the collection.

Along its craft beers, Caravelle is always experimenting with new drinks recipes. During the 2020 lockdown, they’ve offered cocktails in cans to be delivered. Hey Studio designed a simple, and flexible label system to ease the supply in these difficult times. The recipe of the beverage (set in an unidentified version of Times) should be manually circled to reveal its content.

Recently they’ve also added a soda ginger beer to their range, being their first non-alcoholic beverage. This allowed Hey Studio to introduce a bubbly custom “Soda” lettering based on Benguiat Charisma Script.

Suisse Int’l is part of the Suisse family, available from Swiss Typefaces.

Caravelle’s current range of beers (excluding Summer releases).

Caravelle’s first batch of beers from 2017.

Source: heystudio.es © Hey Studio / Enric Badrinas. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.facebook.com © Caravelle Brewery. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: heystudio.es © Hey Studio / Enric Badrinas. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: heystudio.es © Hey Studio / Enric Badrinas. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.instagram.com © Caravelle Brewery. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.instagram.com © Caravelle Brewery. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.instagram.com © Caravelle Brewery. License: All Rights Reserved.

Some new beers from 2021 alongside the existing ones.

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

Clip Books of Line Art, Volk (1972)

Sat, 31 Oct 2020 15:43:38 +0000

Photo(s) by Bart Solenthaler on Flickr.

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Bart Solenthaler and tagged with “chwastblimp” and “benguiatcharismascript”. License: All Rights Reserved.

“Hot & Cold” (No. 228) ft. Chwast Blimp and Benguiat Charisma Script. “COLD” appears to be based on Oprescu Fingerprint, with the outer lines removed. All three faces are original designs carried by Photo-Lettering.

Covers for various clip books of line art issued by Volk Corp in 1972. This volume continues the portrait format that was introduced in the year before. Just as in 1970 and 1971, many of the display faces like Brave and Free or Futura Dot are novelties from the extensive catalog of Photo-Lettering. Jolly Roger and the refreshingly blasphemous Helvetica Flair originated at Phil Martin’s Alphabet Innovations. The covers with Countdown and Premier Shaded might be among the earliest examples for Letraset originals used by Volk. On most covers, the line “Clip Book of Line Art” is set in ITC Avant Garde Gothic with alternates for e and A.

See also the dedicated post about the subseries titled Grafika which includes booklets published in 1972. For more information on Harry Volk Jr. Art Studio, see the post about the clip books issued in 1955.

“Distaffers” (No. 227) ft. Kabel Black, contrasted with Kabel Light.

“Holidays” (No. 229) ft. Brave and Free.

“Radio & TV” (No. 230) ft. Goudy Heavyface Italic.

“Insurance” (No. 231) with a graphic depiction of why you might need one, ft. Kabel Black.

“Opposites” (No. 234) ft. all-caps Kabel Black.

“Occupations” (No. 236) ft. Eurostile and Helvetica [see comments].

“Expressions” (No. 240) ft. tightly spaced Charter Oak.

“Mail” (No. 241) ft. Profil. The subline here uses a bolder weight from ITC Avant Garde Gothic, to avoid a too great contrast in weight next to the chunky shadowed slab serif. Illustration by Tom Sawyer.

“Holidays” (No. 242) ft. all-caps Goudy Heavyface Italic, paired with the similar (and earlier) Cooper Black Italic, here distinguished by swash caps.

“Summer” (No. 563) ft. Novel Gothic.

“The Golden Years” (No. 564) ft. Kabel. Sensitive typophiles may cringe at the combination of two very similar typefaces.

“Autumn” (No. 565) ft. Jolly Roger.

“Education” (No. 566) ft. Countdown, designed by Colin Brignall (Letraset, 1965).

“Groups” (No. 567) ft. Premier Shaded, designed by Colin Brignall (Letraset, 1970). Illustration by Tom Sawyer.

“Christmas” (No. 568) ft. Kalligraphia and Helvetica Flair.

“Couples” (No. 569) ft. slanted Futura Dot. The addition “20th Anniversary issue” suggests that Volk was founded in 1952 or 1953. The oldest booklets published in Bart Solenthaler’s collection are from 1954.

“Transportation” (No. 572) ft.Buxom. Just like in “Mail” (No. 241, see above), the weight of “Clip Book of Line Art” is increased to hold up against the heavyweight.

“Sales” (No. 573) ft. Uncle Bill.

“Women” (No. 575), pairing Normande Italic with handwriting.

“Human Relations” (No. 576) ft. Cartier and Windsor for the bottom line.

“Teens” (No. 577) with more Jolly Roger.

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

Al Cohn & Zoot Sims – Body And Soul album art

Florian Hardwig — Sat, 17 Oct 2020 13:42:39 +0000

Contributed by Florian Hardwig

Source: www.hhv.de License: All Rights Reserved.

A bichromatic use of Benguiat Charisma Shaded on the cover of Body And Soul. The album by American jazz saxophonists Al Cohn (1925–1988) and Zoot Sims (1925–1985) was released by Muse Records in 1973. It additionally features Jaki Byard (piano), George Duvivier (bass), and Mel Lewis (drums). Their names are listed in Cooper Black. Body and Soul was produced by Don Schlitten, who also provided the photography and cover design.

In 1993, Photo-Lettering, Inc. made a digital version including Shaded and Contour styles, but it’s no longer available. Letraset’s Candice (1976) is similar.

[More info on Discogs]

Back cover with liner notes by Ira Gitler (1928–2019).

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

MAMSAM mugs

Threedotstype — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 16:07:22 +0000

Contributed by Threedotstype

Żoliborz by Marian Misiak / threedotstype

MAMSAM mugs —

are associated, first of all, with an aesthetics of PRL (People’s Republic of Poland), although they were also inspired from the German design of 1960s. The first patterns referred directly to the Polish applied graphic design of 1970s. However, with time the designers cooperating with us started to treat them as a medium of comments towards the present days and to make reference to the current events or texts of the culture.

MANSAM Mugs, are first and foremost good Polish design as well as the gallery presenting the works of Polish graphic artists and designers distinguishing themselves.

They are formed as limited series, not exceeding 100 pieces (there are mostly 30 pieces of them of one pattern). Each series is an unrepeated collection of logotypes, which are not produced more by us in case if they have beeen already sold.

The MAMSAM shop currently lists 979 different designs submitted by 173 designers, sorted in 12 categories like cities, sport, animals, objects, words. This post shows a selection of mugs with typographic designs. Unless otherwise noted, all depicted mugs were designed by Janek Bersz, one of the most prolific contributors. The selection also includes mugs by Polish type designers who have used the MAMSAM mugs as a platform to showcase their typefaces.

אהבה by Mixcolour

Śląsk by Marian Misiak / threedotstype

Singiel by Tomasz Tkaczyk

Służew by Szymon Sznajder

Bielany by Joanna Angulska

Żoliborz by Zuzanna Rogatty

Ursynów by Rafał Buchner

Bemowo by Mateusz Machalski

Śródmieście by Mateusz Machalski

Saska Kępa by Ludka Niezgoda

Wilanów by Anna Wieluńska

Mokotów by Robert Jarzec

Żerań by Maciej Połczyński

Praga by Maciej Włoczewski

Białołęka by Beata Kurek

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

Asimov’s Choice series, Dale Books

Florian Hardwig — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 20:19:13 +0000

Astronauts & Androids (1977), edited by George H. Scithers. Cover art by Frank Kelly Freas [The Internet Speculative Fiction Database]

Asimov’s Choice is a series of science fiction anthologies edited by George H. Scithers and L. Sprague de Camp with Isaac Asimov and published by Dale Books, an imprint of Davis Publications.

The main typeface on the covers of the first three books from 1977 — Astronauts & Androids, Black Holes & Bug-Eyed-Monsters, The Queen of Zamba — is Benguiat Charisma Script Shaded. The heavy script is just one of over 600 typefaces designed by Ed Benguiat, who was born on this day in 1927. Happy 90th birthday, Ed!

The accompanying Clarendon is another face by Photo-Lettering, Inc. — Dave West’s Behemoth. Later volumes (Extraterrestrials & Eclipses, Comets & Computers, Dark Stars & Dragons, 1978) have less exciting covers featuring a condensed grotesque.

Black Holes & Bug-Eyed-Monsters (1977), edited by George H. Scithers. Cover art by Frank Kelly Freas

The Queen of Zamba (The Cosmic Manhunt) (1977), edited by L. Sprague de Camp. Cover art by Jack Gaughan

Title page

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

Merry Christmas from Sesame Street album art

Rob Hudson — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 12:31:19 +0000

[More info on Discogs]

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use