The Selected Poetry of Blake by David V. Erdman (Signet)
Contributed by Florian Hardwig on Apr 24th, 2021. Artwork published in
March 1976
.
Davison Moulin Rouge and ITC Avant Garde Gothic in all caps, on the cover of The Selected Poetry of Blake by David V. Erdman (1911–2001), published as Signet Classics CE878 in March 1976. Illustration by Fred Otnes.
10 Comments on “The Selected Poetry of Blake by David V. Erdman (Signet)”
This album looks like a 1st use because it’s from 1964
I’m afraid dates found on the Internet Archive need to be taken with a grain of salt. For records, Discogs often is the better source. According to their page, the album was indeed released in 1964, but with a different cover. The version with Moulin Rouge is dated 1980.
The reason why 1964 sounded fishy to me is that the secondary typeface is ITC Korinna, which was released around 1971. And the Arabesque Recordings logo uses ITC Benguiat – which didn’t exist before 1978.
I found this album from 1974 where it looks like the Davison Moulin Rouge font but it looks like it’s the Art Nouveau by Deberny & Cie
Thank you for sharing, Javi!
Yes, I agree that this piece of lettering looks it’s patterned after Deberny & Cie’s design – which I believe to be the inspiration to Davison Moulin Rouge. Especially the A suggests as much. I have yet to find out whether there was a (text) typeface as well, in addition to the initials shown in their 1912 specimen. Other details like O and N are quite different. These either fall under artistic license, or maybe there was an intermediate step.
Sadly that font hasn’t been digitized
Another 3rd album I found from 1969, where it used Davison Moulin Rouge but in Caps version
Also I don’t think Davison Moulin Rouge was created in 1968 because I scroll through every album (with that same year) and notice there weren’t any use of it
Thanks for sharing this insight! That’s not how dating works, though. Just because we don’t know of any use (yet) doesn’t mean the typeface wasn’t around, does it? Moulin Rouge might have come out in 1968 – maybe late in the year – but no-one specified it right away. Also, four out of the seven documented uses are for book covers, so in order to corroborate the thesis, you’d need to check every book published in that year, too. ;)
It’s true that release dates for typefaces by Photo-Lettering are not straightforward to determine. We often have to narrow down the date range based on appearances in in-use examples as well as in specimens and catalogs. For Moulin Rouge, I did so and arrived at “between 1967 and 1969”: it’s proven that it was available in 1969, but it also could have been around a year or two earlier.
The reason why I tentatively put “c.1968” on our typeface page is PLINC’s catalog number: Moulin Rouge is listed as nos. 5733–5735. Arabesque, another design by Davison, has no. 5736, and it’s shown in a specimen booklet explicitly dated 1968. Other typefaces included in that booklet have higher catalog numbers, too, including Village (5788/5789), Scorpio (5882), and Psyche (5884).
Now I don’t know how closely PLINC stuck to chronology when it came to handing out catalog numbers. Maybe you are correct and Moulin Rouge was issued only in 1969, and after Arabesque, despite it having a lower number. I’ve adjusted the date to “c.1969”.
I scroll through 1968 books on Internet Archive but couldn’t find any
Also I wish someone made a revival of that font