Avant Garde Type Specimen

Nicole Jaffe / Avant Garde

NTGAR

AVAROCK

ING& ROLL

STONESDE

INTERVIEW WITH TYPE SPECIMEN

MICK JAGGER / BOLD 36pt

KEITH RICHARDS / DEMI OBLIQUE 30pt

RONNIE WOOD / BOOK OBLIQUE 24pt

CHARLIE WATTS / EXTRA LIGHT 20pt

Born: July 26, 1943 12pt

Instruments: vocals, harmonica, percussion, guitar, bass, keyboards

Born: December 18, 1943 10pt

Instruments: guitar, vocals, bass, keyboards

Born: June 1, 1947 8pt

Instruments: guitar, bass, pedal steel, lap steel, harmonica, saxophone, drums, vocals, nose flute

Born: June 2, 1941 6pt

Instruments: drums, percussion

PLEASED TO MEET YOU


THE STONES FOR AVANT GARDE

RONNIE WOOD / BOOK OBLIQUE 24pt

I take it that you’ve heard the news about Kurt Cobain. What do you think?

K:Well, yeah. I don’t know. Some-body should have been taking care of the man, you know. He’s obviously a lunatic in the first place. The guy tried to do himself in in Rome. Nobody was there for him. He took a shotgun. Boom. Maybe he’s better off, you know. Who knows. He’d make a lousy plumber. I really…it’s nothing much to do with me. I mean guys kill themselves all the time, you know. I mean nobody hears about it. Because he’s a guitar player in a big band, everybody’s like, you know, crying in their beer.

R:Well, I said to Kurt Cobain, “There’s a differ-ence between scratching your ass and tearing at the pieces,” you know. He didn’t have to, you know, kill himself to prove a point. I like bands like Pearl Jam and even they are having their problems with their identity kind of crisis, you know. We don’t want to be famous and all that kind of thing. I mean, why are they making records?

While I see you as a Rolling Stones mem-ber, playing drums and then I see you at the cricket at Lords, it’s like two totally different people.

C:Two totally different places. Can you imagine going into the bloody lawn room banging the drums? They be late people dead for the...Well, Mick and I usually go…and if I don’t go with Mick I go play cricket. It’s lovely, I think. I love cricket.

M:I can’t get Charlie to watch the England team losing. The tape arrives four days later, but I’m rather looking forward to Australia versus the West Indies. Bill said, “Well I’m not gonna tour again, I’m not going to record right again” after...in 1990, so we knew that we were going to go on with someone else. We didn’t know what we were going to do. So I think, to be honest, I mean you miss a certain personality in there, but the bass in a band like the Rolling Stones is probably the easiest thing to replace.

K:But then I have to say that maybe Bill did the right thing because you do have to want to do this thing and you gotta want to do it a little more than 100%. You’ve gotta feel like sure in your-self and confident that this is what you want to do because you sign on that dotted line and it’s two years baby and you’re schleppin’ and either you’re look-ing forward to it and if you ain’t then it’s probably sheer murder. I’ve never been in that position, but I think maybe Bill felt maybe he was approaching it and in a way did us a favor. So I’m softening the blow, and I’m saying Bill maybe you did the right thing. Inadvertently, maybe. But Charlie Watson, Darrel I got a new engine down there, you know, in the engine room, you know, boom, and it’s a wonder to behold.

He seemed to bear his soul to them. Did that surprise you?

M:I think that people that are reformed alcoholics and junkies and things have a bit of a tenden-cy to do that. It’s encouraged. But I think I would prefer if he stopped giving graphic details of how he’s sick. Just my personal taste.

How have you been able to contain every-thing yourself? You’ve never had those problems faced with?

M:Yeah, I’ve had all kinds of problems, but I’ve not had them as large as some people, and I haven’t felt the need to confess on camera.

Your band not only gets a nomination for a Grammy it wins a Grammy. Were you knocked out about that?

K:Yes, the first time we’d been nomi-nated let alone win it. They gave us a little thing about 10 years ago, little wooden thing with a gramophone, you know, victrola with the horn in it, and I put it up on the wall and the nail fell out, and I thought well that’s a lifetime award. Thanks a lot. But any way, yeah in a way, yeah, the band secretly, everybody pretends that it doesn’t mean a thing but I think somewhere inside they are going, “Yes!”

You toured with The Faces in ’74. Did you ever think you’d be a Rolling Stone?

R:Yeah, fate. The fact that when I got to Munich I was in a room between Jeff Beck, Stevie Maria, Harvey Mandel. They were all down the corridor. I don’t know. I just seemed to hit it off right away.

THE WORLD’S GREATEST BOOK

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BOLD


DEMI


MEDIUM


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ROCK AND ROLL FONT

HERB LUBALIN,

a prominent graphic designer of the 60s and 70s,worked with American publisher and author, Ralph Ginzburg, on several magazine publications. These three magazines were

Eros, Fact, and finally Avant Garde. Lubalin decided to use tight-fitting

98 pt

62 pt

48 pt

40 pt

36 pt

26 pt

18 pt


According to Tony DiSpigna, one of Lubalin’s design partners, “The first time Avant Garde was used was one of the few times it was used correctly. It’s become the most abused typeface in the world.” American art director, author, and journalist, Steven Heller said, “[the] excessive number of ligatures…were misused by de-signers who had no understanding of how to employ these typographic forms,” and that “Avant Garde was Lubalin’s signature, and in his hands it had character; in others’ it was a flawed Futura-esque face.”

Avant Garde was intended for headlines, where the ligatures could be well-crafted and fully appreciated. Lubalin and Carnase cre-ated two designs for ITC Avant Garde, one with ligatures and alternate characters for setting headlines and one without ligatures and alter-nate characters for body copy. However, when Avant Garde became a digital typeface, the ligatures and alternate characters were not included, so designers were denied access to the most interesting aspect of the typeface.

In 2005, ITC released a new version of ITC Avant Garde Gothic called ITC Avant Garde Gothic Pro. This version of the typeface contains new ligatures as well as more cap and lowercap alternatives. Sadly, there are still some lost ligatures that can only be found in scanned images from the 70s.

12 pt

10 pt 9 pt

8 pt


letterforms and ligatures in the logo to create the futuristic, innovative look that Ginzburg requested. It was somewhat reminiscent of art deco typefaces but with a more modern twist. Many people in the design community sent requests to Lubalin, asking him to make a complete typeface based on the Avant Garde logo. With the help of Tom Carnase,

another designer in his firm, Lubalin created ITC Avant Garde Gothic and released it through his International Typeface Corporation in 1970. Sadly, Avant Garde was largely misunderstood as a typeface and was often used incorrectly. In the end it became an overused, stereotypical typeface.

Everyone talks about rock these days; the problem is they forget about the roll.

I’ve n

eve

r ha

d a

p

rob

lem

with

dru

gs.

I’ve h

ad

pro

ble

ms

with

the

po

lice

.

I never thought I was wasted, but I probably was.

If yo

u’re

go

ing

to k

ick

au

tho

rity

in th

e te

eth

, yo

u m

igh

t as

we

ll u

se tw

o fe

et.

The only things Mick and I disagree about is the band, the music and what we do.

ANARCHY isthe only slight glimmer of hope.

An

yth

ing

wo

rth

do

ing

is

wo

rth

ove

rdo

ing

.

I must be careful not to get trapped in the past. That’s why I tend to forget my songs.

“

To me, as long as we’ve known each other, I’ve always thought Mick’s most brilliant thing was that he could work in an area two foot square and give a very exciting performance.

You’ve got the sun, you’ve got the moon, and you’ve got the Rolling Stones.


I look for ambiguity when I’m writing because

life is ambiguous.

I on

ly ge

t ill w

he

n I g

ive

up

dru

gs.

I never thought I was wasted, but I probably was.

A g

oo

d th

ing

nev

er e

nds.

I got nasty habits; I take tea at three.

Lose your dreams and you might lose your mind.

”

Peo

ple

ge

t very th

ou

gh

tful

wh

en

the

y are

in c

ars.

I no

lon

ge

r ca

re fo

r ca

rs. I d

on

’t co

llec

t the

m.

People have this obsession. They want you to be like you were in 1969. They want you to, because otherwise their youth goes with you. It’s very selfish, but it’s understandable.

You’ve got the sun, you’ve got the moon, and you’ve got the Rolling Stones.

When I listen to what I

did under the influence -

10 years of work - I don’t

think it either enhanced

or impaired me. It didn’t

have that much to do

with it.

I’d rather be dead than singing “Satisfaction” when I’m forty-five.

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Avant Garde Type Specimen