Taj Majal, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Electro Luminescense, etc. at the Avalon Ballroom, May 31, 1968
Letterform Archive holds several hundred original concert posters from the San Francisco Bay Area’s psychedelia period of 1967–72. Prolific artists like Wes Wilson, Victor Moscoso, Rick Griffin, and Bonnie MacLean are well represented. There are several outliers, however, such as this David Smith design. Titled by Family Dog as Machancio Mandala, the poster has familiar psychedelic imagery – a photograph by Paul Kagan – but combined with an electronic/futuristic pattern and typeface: Gemini Computer.
The designers judiciously use Gemini’s alternates or rotate glyphs for spacing purposes (‘EE’ in “CREED”) and variety (‘OO’ in “BALLROOM”).
This first edition was printed with fluorescent pink, teal, and metallic silver inks. A second printing has another color scheme with a darker blue.
4 Comments on “Taj Majal, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Electro Luminescense, etc. at the Avalon Ballroom, May 31, 1968”
Never thought about the access The Letterform Archive has to those posters! I did a lot of research on those guys back in October. (One result of that, I rushed a typeface based on the hand-lettering of Victor Moscoso, that I never really finished.) It’s so cool they put the credits at the bottom of this one!
Nearly all the Family Dog or Bill Graham posters I’ve seen have credits. Let me know if you want hi-res images of any others.
The “A.B. SHKY BLUES BAND” is supposed to be “SKHY” so they made a typo in the ordering instead of accidental doubling of the ‘K’ as we thought when glancing at the design. I still agree that the “H” they use there and for “MAHAL” is funky for Gemini, though I have seen something similar in some MICR-based typeface designs. Still curious about the source of some of the forms and hope to run across more original references during my revival research.
Stunning and I’d say unusual compared to many Family Dog posters.