Stylin’ the Seventies

oldnick's picture

I am in the process of plugging some gaps in the Typographic Timeline in my overall collection, and I noticed that—given the impact on my personal life—the late sixties and early seventies are grossly underrepresented.

Does anyone have any suggestions on typefaces particularly evocative of that era? There are a number of typefaces in the PLINC library which are original or derivative, but House Industries hasn’t gotten around to doing whatever they have to do to the source material before the letterforms can be used for their online headline service. But, I don’t to step on any toes, so other sources would be appreciated.

PublishingMojo's picture

ITC Bookman, with lots of swash characters.

John Lyttle's picture

I was recently looking at this Japanese site: e-daylight.
The album covers shown are very evocative of the era you're talking about, aren't they?
A couple examples that grabbed me: L&C Hairline designed by Herb Lubalin & Tom Carnase in 1966 …
Novel Gothic designed by Morris Fuller Benton for ATF in 1928 (but looking so 1969 on that Miles Davis record).

oldnick's picture

Victor,

I am not surprised you mentioned swashes. Dave West had a line of swash alphabets—based on Cooper, Barnum and Latin—that were dynamite: bold, playful and in-yer-face. Very seventies, very cool...

riccard0's picture

ITC Bookman, with lots of swash characters.

Already covered: http://www.ms-studio.com/FontSales/bookmania.html

riccard0's picture

swash alphabets—based on Cooper

Like this one http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/nicksfonts/umbriago-nf/ ? ;-)

Theunis de Jong's picture

I would have guessed Hobo because it strongly evokes "early 70s" to me. Much to my surprise, I just found it predates the 1970s by about half a century!

riccard0's picture

I have the impression that most of the widely used typefaces and lettering styles we associate to the Seventies were, in fact, much older. Just like this fine specimen from 1903:

Nick Shinn's picture

Serif Gothic.

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