The Moody Blues – The Present album art and single covers
Album cover (front)
The Present from 1983 is the eleventh album by rock group The Moody Blues from Birmingham, and the last original studio album to be released on their custom label, Threshold Records. It spawned a UK Top 40 hit in “Blue World” and a US Top 40 hit in “Sitting at the Wheel”.
The cover design by The Studio features an airbrush rendition of Daybreak. This neo-classical painting by Maxfield Parrish was created in 1922 and went on to become the most popular art print of the 20th century. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was referenced in various works of popular culture, from the poster for the 1987 film The Princess Bride to the 1995 music video for Michael Jackson’s “You Are Not Alone”.
The quirky typeface chosen for the title goes back to the 1920s, too: it’s Greeting Monotone, designed by Morris Fuller Benton for ATF in 1927. Apparently conceived for the use on quaint-looking greeting cards, the low-contrast design with stub serifs, wide proportions and a short x-height was equipped with a number of ligatures and alternates, several of which can be seen in this Use. Intertype adopted Greeting Monotone for its line-casting machine, paired on matrices with Adonis, another novelty design by ATF. Monotype offers a digital version, but it lacks all the extra glyphs.
The accompanying typefaces is ITC Benguiat Gothic (1979), the sans-serif spin-off of ITC Benguiat (1978) with rounded terminals. It’s used exclusively in italic styles, and predominantly in all caps.
Glyph set for Greeting Monotone from ATF’s 1934 specimen
On the record labels, the typeface roles are reversed: Benguiat Gothic is used for the titles and Greeting Monotone for the band name, here with the swashy alternate M and the terminal forms for e and d (also in medial position), but not with the Th ligature.
![“Sitting at the Wheel” single [More info on Discogs]](https://fiu-original.b-cdn.net/fontsinuse.com/use-images/N248/248570/248570.jpeg)
“Sitting at the Wheel” single [More info on Discogs]
… with “Gemini Dream” and “Sorry” on the B-side
![“Blue World” single [More info on Discogs]](https://fiu-original.b-cdn.net/fontsinuse.com/use-images/N248/248572/248572.jpeg)
“Blue World” single [More info on Discogs]
… with “Going Nowhere” on the B-side
