Atomic Rooster – Assortment album art
Allsorts for Assortment – this match is too perfect. I have to assume that the Allsorts typeface was designed specifically for this album cover. Or maybe it was the other way around, and the cover concept with the box of English liquorice allsorts was built around the typeface?
Allsorts appears in an undated catalog by London-based type company Face Photosetting. The designer of this pictorial display face is unknown. One likely candidate is John Gorham (1937–2001). Gorham did an illustration of Bertie Bassett, the mascot of Bassett’s, a man made from liquorice allsorts. He also is described by Herbert Spencer and Colin Forbes as “the designer of many vigorous and imaginative alphabets”. At least one of his alphabet designs, Block, was distributed by Face Photosetting. If you can confirm the assumption that Gorham is indeed the designer of Allsorts, please let us know!
Assortment is a compilation of ten songs from Atomic Rooster’s first three LPs, released by Charisma in the UK in 1973. The band members’ names are in italic caps from Gill Sans, the small print incl. the track listing is set in two weights from Rockwell. The images show the German version from 1974, with the same cover design. The sleeve concept is by Lloyd Beiny, with artwork by Bill Dare/ROC Advertising. Beiny went on to work in music management, guiding the careers of The Tourists, Eurythmics, and others. Since 2000 he serves as CEO of WENN.
Glyph set of Allsorts as shown in an undated catalog by Face. Scan courtesy of Mathieu Triay – thanks!
2 Comments on “Atomic Rooster – Assortment album art”
Here’s the illustration of Bertie Bassett as it’s featured on Bassett’s Liquorice Allsorts candy box from the 1970s (scan courtesy of Jason Liebig). A similar reproduction is included in a blog post by Johnson Banks, titled “Remembering John Gorham”.
Another use of Allsorts is the logo for the 2020 edition of the San Francisco Art Book Fair, which (I guess) is an example of a custom digitization.