Scott Walker – Mathilde EP cover
French sleeve for Scott Walker’s EP Mathilde from 1967. While the musician’s name is shown in (crude and ugly) handmade letterforms, the song titles are set in a typeface. It’s the relatively obscure Roncesvalles, a narrow pen-drawn looking sans with distinct vertical contrast – not unlike Lydian (1938) or Valiant (1940), but much more lively.
Roncesvalles was designed by René Ponot. Named after the municipality in northern Spain, close to the French border, it was issued by the Fundición Tipográfica Nacional in Madrid in 1955, in a solid and a caps-only claro (open) style. Chances are it was conceived as a competitor to Imre Reiner’s Contact (Deberny & Peignot, 1952). I’m not aware of a digital revival.
René Ponot (1917–2003) is credited with at least nine typeface designs; Psitt (FTF, 1953) being the first. He is also known as the author of Louis Perrin et l’Énigme des Augustaux (Éditions Des Cendres, Paris, 1998), a biography of the 19th-century French printer and his types, among other publications. In 1989, Ponot wrote an article about typeface classification for Communication & Langages.
The recto shows a better-known mid-century typeface from France, Roger Excoffon’s Antique Olive. This cut has a much shorter x-height than the digitally available versions. The cover photo is by Dezo Hoffmann.
Detail of an FTN specimen included in Bleisatzschriften des 20. Jahrhunderts international by Hans Reichardt (ed.)
