Frank Zappa in Hitweek magazine (1967–69)
October 21 1966, Vol. 2 No. 5. Cooper Black in speech balloons as a reference to the typography on the Freak Out! album art for Zappa and his Mothers. The other display faces on this cover are all based on 19th-century wood type: “Sex” and “Troggs” are set in Gothic Bold, “komen” in Aldine Expanded, “Rock & Roll” in Celtic/Celtic Ornamented, and “Ike & Tina” in Phanitalian. “Wally Tax” uses a font that has later been digitized as Alcazar and Number 514.
A selection of pages from Hitweek, an independent rock weekly magazine that was founded and designed by Willem de Ridder in the Netherlands in the 1960s. Note how the magazine mocks its own status by changing logos and name: Hitweek, Witheek (which is meaningless gibberish).
Legendary Dutch underground music magazine. The first year was only available in Amsterdam (1965–1966) but the later issues also in other big Dutch cities. It was THE magazine for hippies, modsters and other long haired youngsters. Hitweek was the magazine were you could find articles and pictures of obscure US, UK and Dutch bands such as The Outsiders, The Pink Floyd, Q65, The Creation, Lazy Bones, The Mothers, Velvet Underground + many many more. Hitweek was also famous because of the artwork. Especially the years 1967–1969 had great psychedelic drawings and pictures. Hitweek can be compared to the UK underground magazine IT, but Hitweek had more colour and more psychedelic artwork. In 1969 weekly Hitweek was renamed and continued as biweekly Aloha. —Afka.net
September 29, 1967 / Vol. 3 No. 2. “Freak out in the Concertgebouw — as if you’re flushing the toilet”. At first look, it seems like the type has been clipped, or compressed. One of the many ways in which Willem de Ridder made a name for himself was by simply cutting up letter shapes in order to get his headlines to fit the layout. The letters on this page might have been sourced from Lettera 2, using an alphabet called Gros Titre.
September 29, 1967 / Vol. 3 No. 2. “To London for next to nothing” uses Schmalfette Grotesk and “Jazz: sad for the neighbours” uses Folio Condensed.
![March 29 1968, Vol. 3 No. 28. “The new album by The Mothers!” “Finally, Witheek [sic] will expand!” Headlines set in what looks like a version of Gothic Bold. It could be Skidoo Caps, which is shown in Lettergraphics’ 1969 catalog, albeit with a different W. Berthold’s came later (1972) and is different in several letterforms, incl. G, J, O, V, W.](https://assets.fontsinuse.com/static/use-media-items/77/76846/full-904x1288/5c478c9c/1968-03-29%20Hitweek%20v3n28%2000.jpeg)
March 29 1968, Vol. 3 No. 28. “The new album by The Mothers!” “Finally, Witheek [sic] will expand!” Headlines set in what looks like a version of Gothic Bold. It could be Skidoo Caps, which is shown in Lettergraphics’ 1969 catalog, albeit with a different W. Berthold’s Beat Star came later (1972) and is different in several letterforms, incl. G, J, O, V, W.
October 25, 1968, Vol. 4 No. 6. “This man is a peril”. Headlines on the right hand use Folio Condensed. The top of the lowercase t has diagonal terminals, a feature that was lost in digitizations of Folio.
Hitweek 36, Vol. 3 “Dordrecht is a sweet little town”, “It’s Out!! The third album by The Mothers”, advertisement for We’re Only In It For The Money. Headlines set in Egyptienne.
8 Comments on “Frank Zappa in Hitweek magazine (1967–69)”
This is great, Matthijs!
Seconded! Here’s a specimen for California Caps:
The whole blog post about Zappa in Hitweek is full of great stuff. I hope to find the time to post some more by Willem de Ridder soon. His use of California Caps pre-dates the 1968 Letter-fan, impressive how designers like De Ridder managed to be aware of new releases in the pre-internet era.
I think I found a more likely source for that type: Gros Titre by Roland Schenk in 1959, as shown in Lettera 2, 1961.
In 1959, Schenk was art director for Swiss arts periodical Du, so perhaps this was a custom headline alphabet created for that use. It’s unclear if it was ever officially adapted as a phototype font, but Lettergraphics appears to have copied and expanded it as California Caps.
Bravo, Stewf! Did you remember that alphabet, or did you look it up? Anyway, my hat is off to you.
I agree that copying, cutting and pasting letters from an alphabet source book like Lettera is more likely than using a (freshly released?) American film typeface.
Roland Schenk’s work may not have been made into a proper font, but Lettera and other similar books effectively functioned as founts of letterforms. This is underpinned by the intro to the book, which explicitly states: “Every purchaser of LETTERA 2 is entitled to form words and texts for any purpose from the alphabet it contains.” This magazine cover is a great example. By the way, the original “release format” of Walter Haettenschweiler’s Schmalfette Grotesk likewise was a reproduction in Lettera.
There are a few minor differences between Gros Titre and California Caps. In the latter, G has a bigger aperture, Q bar is not centered, and X is less squarish. Here’s a comparison, showing Gros Titre (left), a G from the Hitweek cover (center), and California Caps (right). In addition to the aperture, see also the bottom link.
I’ve made an entry for Gros Titre and adjusted the credits in the post.
Four issues of Hitweek were recently added to Letterform’s Online Archive, which just went public.
Have you thought about Aldine Ornamented, a member of William H. Page’s Aldine? Did the Aldine family expand into phototypesetting?
Hi Jay, Aldine Ornamented now has an entry in the database. I’m aware of at least one phototype adaptation. It was included in Headliners’ Morgan Press Collection as MP 309. Have you come across a nice in-use example?