A Science Fiction Argosy by Damon Knight (Gollancz)
First published in 1972 by Simon & Schuster in New York with a jacket featuring ITC Pioneer, Damon Knight’s anthology A Science Fiction Argosy was issued in the United Kingdom by Victor Gollancz a year later.
For this edition, the title and the author’s name are shown in a three-colored rendition of Jim Crow, with the third color probably produced by overprinting. Secondary text and the SF series logo is in Grotesque No. 9. The publisher’s logo uses Univers.
Referencing the racist stereotype, Jim Crow is the name used by ATF for their 20th-century recastings of Gothic Shade as cast by the Dickinson Type Foundry around 1850, which in turn may have been copied from a French design. Earlier this year, African American type designer Tré Seals of Vocal released VTC Ruby. This interpretation comes in four styles which facilitate the combination in layers for chromatic effect – as seen in this jacket design. Read more about Ruby and its precursors on Vocal Type’s website.
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See also Rapp & Whiting’s edition of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? from 1969 for another British book jacket using chromatic Jim Crow.