John Williams – The John Towner Touch album art
Contributed by Rob Hudson on May 4th, 2023. Artwork published in
July 1957
.
The John Towner Touch is the 1957 debut album from the jazz pianist then known as John Towner. He would later become better known as Johnny Williams, and then far-better known as John Williams, the composer of film scores such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Superman, Harry Potter, etc.
The title is set on the front cover in yellow Trade Gothic Extended in all caps at a large size [edit: it’s rather an extended style of Akzidenz-Grotesk a.k.a. Standard]. On the rear cover, the title is in regular-wide Akzidenz-Grotesk. Track names are set in two weights of Futura, with liner notes in a Bodoni.
3 Comments on “John Williams – The John Towner Touch album art”
Trade Gothic Extended apparently wasn’t released until 1959. The title is probably actually using Standard Extralight Extended, as seen here: www.flickr.com/photos/28813…
Good catch, thanks, Bryson! I had checked the secondary IDs, during moderation, but skipped the primary one. I concur with your ID. Standard Extralight Extended is equivalent to Akzidenz-Grotesk Skelett (c.1911–1914):
Interestingly, the Adcraft Typographers specimen you linked to and Nike’s 1910s Berthold specimen show a w (and the former also a W) with overlapping middle diagonals. On a later undated index card by Berthold, these characters exhibit a simpler form, as in Standard Light Extended a.k.a. Akzidenz-Grotesk breit mager (1911). Other glyphs might have been revised, too: C appears to have gotten a larger aperture.
Photo-Lettering (which is a likely source for the type used on this cover) had this design as Standard Light Extended 1, with the simpler form for W.
Thank you, Bryson: nice catch!