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Typographic trends: are the sixties back?

A Donovan album from the 1960s which uses a font similar to Arnold Bocklin.

Millennials, you probably won’t have heard of Donovan, but in the sixties he was as cool as a cucumber. He was a singer-songwriter and guitarist who developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music (source Wikipedia). Donovan’s album covers were some of the first graphic images that made an impression on me as a young schoolgirl. They used very distinctive fonts which seemed to reflect his style of music. The most well known was ‘Arnold Bocklin’, used copiously in the sixties (in fact Arnold Bocklin was as ubiquitous as Comic Sans is today) but other similar fonts were used.

A Donovan album from the 1960s which uses a font similar to Arnold Bocklin.
A Donovan album from the 1960s which uses the Arnold Bocklin font.
Arnold Bocklin font

I’ve noticed that there has been a resurgence of this style, and I’ve started to snap instances of this. Here’s what I’ve found recently:

1960s-style lettering on a poster for Kew The Music
Kew The Music poster on Teddington station
1960s-style lettering on a Stirling fascia.
A shop sign in Stirling

1960s-style lettering on a poster at Olympia.
A poster outside Olympia station.
1960s-style lettering in a Cadiz bar
Fascia of a bar in Cadiz.

1960s-style lettering on a Wolfgang Tilmans design.
Spotted at the Wolgang Tilmans exhibition at Tate Modern.
1960s-style lettering at Patisserie Valerie.
Patisserie Valerie at a motorway service station.

1960s-style lettering on a fascia in Spitalfields.
A fascia in Spitalfields market.
1960s-style lettering on a cafe fascia in Iceland.
Part of a sign in a Reykjavik cafe.

1960s-style lettering at Pizza Express.
Pizza Express, Teddington.

I wonder if this is to become a trend? I blame Liam Gallagher who started this resurgence with his Pretty Green logo (which I love). What do you think of this style? Is it here to stay?

Pretty Green logo

If you would like any advice on typography, please get in touch. In the meantime, find out how much you know about fonts by taking our quick quiz.

 

About the author

Annette Peppis leads the team at Peppis Designworks, a creative hub of established publishing industry experts who create books, branding, marketing material and design templates for leading publishers and businesses. Keep in touch by  to her bi-monthly emails.

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