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Music from BBC Children’s Programmes album art

Contributed by Jorge Iván Moreno Majul on Sep 19th, 2020. Artwork published in .
Music from BBC Children’s Programmes album art 1
Source: bbcrecords.co.uk BBC Records Discography Blog. License: All Rights Reserved.

This LP cover from 1975 includes a variety of themes from popular children’s television shows from the British Broadcasting Corporation. The BBC Records Discography Blog says:

Both sides of RESL 13 turned up on ‘Music From BBC Children’s Programmes’ (REH 214) in 1975. The six episodes of Moonbase 3 were only broadcast once on BBC at a time when most children were already abed, and it wasn’t aimed at them anyway, so this appears to be a fairly lazy bit of re-licensing by BBC Records. It doesn’t sit alongside Playschool and Chigley that comfortably. If you want copies of these tracks though it’s a better deal than buying the single. And, just maybe, the label were throwing a bone to DW fans who missed out on the small run of the single.

The album cover was really just a collection of TV show logos which serve as an eclectic sample of the logo design trends from 1975. The jumble is kept together by Embrionic Triline with hyperextended lines that form a border.

[More info on Discogs]

The track list with credits on the back cover are set in various weights from .
Source: bbcrecords.co.uk BBC Records Discography Blog. License: All Rights Reserved.

The track list with credits on the back cover are set in various weights from Gill Sans.

6 Comments on “Music from BBC Children’s Programmes album art”

  1. The unidentified ROUNDABOUT was set in Joseph Gillé’s Madame.

    https://e-daylight.jp/fonts/type/m/madame.html

  2. Thank you, Jay! I have added Circus, which is a different name for the same face. Madame is the name used by Linotype for their revival. I need to check and see when it was made. Given the time and place, the version used here could be Calliope, which is the name used by Mecanorma, the European manufacturer of dry transfer sheets. The original version by Gillé probably didn’t have a trade name yet, but a descriptive one like Lettres Ornées or similar.

  3. Thank you, Jay, and thank you Florian, indeed they’re both seem to be derived from Ornamental Fleur de Lis https://www.flickr.com/photos/bookhistorian/45716913222/in/album-72157703198138384/ according to the reference links on each of the typefaces, although Calliope seems to be missing the S shaped ornamental piece on the upper half of each character (Mecanorma had also another design by the name of Circus but it is not the same), unfortunately there isn’t much information about the date any of the dry-transfer or digital versions were released.

  4. unfortunately there isn’t much information about the date any of the dry-transfer or digital versions were released

    I have fleshed out the typeface page with more information. Calliope was added to Mecanorma’s range of dry transfer lettering in 1967, shortly after their Letter-Press program was launched.

    indeed they’re both seem to be derived from Ornamental Fleur de Lis

    No. As we write on the typeface page, that’s a related lettering model, not a typeface. There was a metal typeface by the French foundry of Joseph Gillé that is older than that piece of lettering, dating from the 1820s.

    It’s unclear who designed it. Michael Hagemann of FontMesa, who made the revival Maison Luxe, states that he was “contacted by a type historian in France reporting that he could not find any evidence supporting Joseph Gillé as the designer and to the best of his knowledge an artist by the name of Sylvestre may be the true designer.”

  5. The lettering for Ragtime could be ITC Ronda with differences such as a, t, i and e. Possibly derived into handwriting.

  6. Thanks, Jay. I don’t see it. Not every letterform is derived from a typeface.

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