Řezník Czechoslovak movie poster
As mentioned in my previous post, Kushell started life as an untitled capital alphabet by Detroit-based lettering artist Charles Jay Strong (1866–1910) and/or his son Lawrence Stewart Strong (1888–1977) and was shown in the 1917 edition of Strong’s Book of Designs. It was made into a font at Californian phototype company Lettergraphics. Under the name Tinker, it was also offered by Formatt, a manufacturer of dry transfer type from Rolling Meadows, Illinois.
Somehow the design made its way into the hands of Olga Franzová in Czechoslovakia. The illustrator and graphic artist was born in 1944 in Prague and graduated from the Academy of Applied Arts (today also known as UMPRUM) where she studied under Antonín Strnadel (1910–1975, successor to Jaroslav Benda). Franzová’s works include illustrating books, magazines and children’s textbooks as well as an animated film.
This A3 poster was made for the Czechoslovakian release of Le Boucher (The Butcher), a psychological thriller film written and directed by Claude Chabrol, starring Stéphane Audran and Jean Yanne. Franzová elongated the proportions of the letterforms, arranged them on a curve and added diacritics and a contour. The credits at the bottom are set in all-caps Gill Sans.
