Futura Bold ad: “the type of today and tomorow”
Contributed by Stephen Coles
on Oct 22nd, 2016. Artwork published in
.
Source: magazines.iaddb.org International Advertising & Design DataBase. License: All Rights Reserved.
This Bauer (New York) ad is likely one of the first for Futura in North America, as the typeface was issued in Europe about 2 years earlier.
The 1930 Art Directors Annual of Advertising Arts credits the artwork to Walter Huxley. It’s not clear if Huxley (an artist and designer better known in the type world for his typeface, Huxley Vertical) was responsible for the entire piece or only the illustrations. His firm, Huxley House, did lots of work for Bauer and Continental type foundries during this period. Huxley himself employed this bold, Art Deco illustration style in a variety of logos and other commercial work throughout the 1930s, as can be seen in an original process book at Letterform Archive in San Francisco.
1 Comment on “Futura Bold ad: “the type of today and tomorow””
It is interesting to note that it wasn’t until 1976 that Futura was used by famed graphic designer Tony Palladino for Conrail’s brand identity. I wonder if he didn’t draw inspiration from this ad.
Tony Palladino died in 2014 at age 84.