Action Force figures by Palitoy
Action Force is an early-1980s, Star Wars-inspired spin off from the popular Action Man dolls, the UK equivalent to America’s GI Joe.
The main fonts used on the brand’s packaging are Glaser Stencil for “Action Force” and Rockwell for the name, with Futura for the age recommendation.
Quite the typographical bounty; the Action Man logo, ported over from the parent line and in use since the late 1960s, is, I think, a patchwork creation using the M and N from Futura Display, the A from, perhaps, Filmotype Mansfield, and the remaining characters from Filmotype Gem?
I haven’t been able to find an exact match so far – perhaps the letterforms were redrafted somewhat during the design process?
The all-caps text inside the starbursts appears to be lettering. Some also are typeset in Dom.
The product line also included various vehicles. The small print on the Skystriker box is Univers Bold Condensed.
5 Comments on “Action Force figures by Palitoy”
Thank you, William!
Regarding the Action Man logo: “Action” appears to be in Eurostile Bold. I don’t know about your patchwork suggestion for “Man”. Such a mix strikes me as unlikely. I’d assume the three letterforms either come from a single typeface (and were possibly redrawn, making the identification tricky), or were custom drawn to start with. Not uncommon for logos from the 1960s.
You suggested Benguiat Frisky for the informal caps inside the starbursts. This typeface comes indeed pretty close, but it’s not a perfect match. I think this is lettering: compare the C’s – they’re all a little different.
For “Man”, Folio Condensed gets us pretty close. Especially URW’s version (Folio Bold Condensed), or rather, the version on which theirs may be based.
That’s a good call.
The original foundry version was named Folio-Grotesk schmalfett in German, and Folio Bold Condensed in English. Initially, the a had a pronounced tail, see the Schriftenkartei index card. This was revised at some point (alongside the t with the diagonally cut top), cf. the glyph set in a 1976 type book.
Here’s a better look at the Action Man logo, reproduced from a 1960s Official Equipment Manual. The a is not quite identical to the one from Folio shown above. A smaller size of the metal type might even come a tad closer. But as I wrote above, there’s a good chance the logo is custom drawn. I’ve added Folio Condensed for now – it’s close, and might have provided the inspiration.
Of course, Eurostile Bold – it seems obvious! I wonder what I was thinking.
Likewise I concur with your observation that the logo is likely hand drawn. The letters in ‘man’ look like elongated versions of Folio Condensed, as suggested.
Good call eliminating Frisky. On examination, no two letterforms appear identical. Is it close enough to qualify as lettering derived from a typeface, however?
Thank you for your wonderful additional research here. Brilliant stuff! I am amazed and humbled at the knowledge on display here.
Good question! I’m on the fence. We assign this tag when we are reasonably certain that the lettering artist indeed referenced the typeface in question. The more generic a letter style is, the trickier it is to be sure.
In this case, there were also other typefaces around that are just as close to the lettering. See this visual comparison of Frisky and Filmotype April (here URW’s digitization). Not to mention the fact that lettering artists employed such casual styles without any inspiration from typefaces.
And then there’s the question whether Frisky was a plausible source in early 1980s UK. Initially, settings in that typeface were exclusively available from Photo-Lettering in New York, making it an unlikely candidate. AGFA had a digitization by the early 1990s. Did it originate already before, at Compugraphic? I don’t know.