Django’s Spirit – A Tribute To Django Reinhardt album art

Compiled by Susie Reinhardt and released by Trikont in 2011. The typeface is Goudy Stout, originally designed by Frederic Goudy in 1930 for his Village Letter Foundery. It was digitally revived a few times, most extensively by CastleType. Jason Castle:

At first I was a bit reluctant to revive it, if for no other reason than Goudy’s own admission that he created this design “in a moment of typographic weakness.”* It finally got to the point that I had to recreate the face, and from the response that I’ve gotten, I’m glad I did! This CastleType revival has extensive language support, including Cyrillic and Greek Modern.

The version used for this record cover is probably Vince Connare’s interpretation, though, which comes bundled with Office and other Microsoft products.

*) Here’s the full quote by Goudy, from A Half-Century of Type Design and Typography: 1895–1945, Vol. 2:

In a moment of typographic weakness I attempted to produce a “black” letter that would interest those advertisers who like the bizarre in their print. It was not the sort of a letter I cared for, but requests from some advertisers who saw the first drawings induced me to cut one size and try out the effect. I never cut any but the one size, although I threatened to cut other sizes if any were demanded. None were!