Cunt Coloring Book
Cover of 1975 Pearchild Productions edition
In a February 2023 interview with James Edmondson for Ohno Radio, Carolyn Minott, granddaughter of Davida designer, Louis Minott, identified this cover as her favorite use of the typeface. She found it in a Portland bookstore and was amused at imagining her grandfather, who used very proper language, seeing his type on such an explicit book.
First published in 1975 by lesbian activist and artist Tee Corinne, the Cunt Coloring Book was created as a resource for sex education. The book was reprinted by Last Gasp in 1989, adding French, German, and Spanish translations.
“In 1973 I set out to do drawings of women’s genitals for use in sex education groups. I wanted the drawings to be lovely and informative, to give pleasure and affirmation. I organized the drawings into a coloring book because a major way we learn to understand the world, as children, is by coloring. As adults many of us still need to learn about our external sexual anatomy.” —Tee Corinne
In addition to Davida, the book’s labels and headlines appear to use dry transfer lettering in Arnold Böcklin and an unidentified sans serif (perhaps a knockoff ITC Avant Garde Gothic Condensed?), with an introduction set on a typewriter using a Cubic style.
First spread of 1975 Pearchild Productions edition
Cover of 1989 Last Gasp edition
1 Comment on “Cunt Coloring Book”
Thanks for posting this, Stephen. I enjoyed listening to Carolyn’s memories a lot. Good job on finding the mentioned book!
For the sans: it’s ITC Avant Garde Gothic Condensed indeed. ITC’s original came with a range of alternates and ligatures, including the e with diagonal bar.
One glyph that’s not shown in the presentation in U&lc vol. 1 no. 1 is the w with the short apex. It can be found as alternate in Berthold’s adaptation of the Book Condensed and Medium Condensed styles [Berthold 1974]. By the way, such a w is the default form in ITC’s original version of regular-wide Avant Garde Gothic, but only in the X-Light and Book styles.
Another provider that carried Avant Garde Condensed Medium (and Bold!) with the optional w with short apex is Mecanorma [Mecanorma 1975]. Their dry transfer lettering product is a likely source for the text in the Cunt Coloring Book. Letraset’s adaptation didn’t have that glyph.
ITC/Monotype’s digital version of Avant Garde Condensed has none of the original alternates and ligatures. It’s drawn narrower and is also different in the topology of a number of glyphs, including k K Q 6 9 0. The apex in w is short in the Extra Light and grows taller across the five weights. In the Bold, it reaches the x-height.