Poppy Gives Thanks
In his Visual History of Type, Paul McNeil writes:
The renowned American designer and illustrator Milton Glaser drew his Glaser Stencil alphabet in 1968 for a poster promoting a concert for an American record label named Poppy. Glaser had previously used Futura Light capitals on promotional work for the company and initially his typeface was simply named ‘Neo-Futura’.
Glaser Stencil as we now know it comes in various versions, usually including only the bold weight (and a roughened version thereof). In their 2015 version of Glaser Stencil, F37 foundry worked with Milton Glaser to restore and update the “lost weights” including a new, more balanced version of the light weight used here. According to F37 the Poppy poster is not the first use of Glaser Stencil. It was already used in 1967 on another poster for Carnegie Hall.
4 Comments on “Poppy Gives Thanks”
Outstanding addition!
The Poppy Records concert at Carnegie Hall was in 1969, not in 1968, like Milton Glaser’s website claims. In 1968, the 26th of November fell on a Tuesday.
I’d be curious to see the poster from 1967 that F37 mentions. For the time being, I’ll include this poster in my Set with Original Uses, and add the first use tag.
Inspector Hardwig strikes again! I have tried a few times to find the 1967 poster, without success (so far).
Looks like F37 no longer has a public page for Glaser Stencil, but it does show up via Google (with the fonts not rendering). Their copy also now says the first use was in 1969.
But in Milton Glaser’s Posters book, he shows a poster/mailer for New York’s Art Directors Club’s 13th Annual Communications Conference from 1968. In the book’s caption, Milton writes: “The typeface is one I’d designed earlier, called Glaser Stencil Light”.
This would predate the Poppy Gives Thanks poster by a year. Not sure if that makes it the first use but it’s earlier.
That’s great information, thank you!
F37 turned their digital Glaser Stencil into a variable font and moved it to their Playground section.