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“The Twelve Months of Love”, Playboy, Jan. 1969

Contributed by Jeff Vorzimmer on Nov 27th, 2021. Artwork published in
January 1969
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“The Twelve Months of Love”, Playboy, Jan. 1969
Photo: Jeff Vorzimmer. License: All Rights Reserved.

“The Twelve Months of Love” is a Playboy magazine pictorial from the January 1969 issue with woodcuts by Clif Karhu and an introduction by Henry Miller. The title plate combines Harem and Optima in a center-aligned layout.

Typefaces

  • Harem
  • Optima

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2 Comments on ““The Twelve Months of Love”, Playboy, Jan. 1969”

  1. Thanks for sharing, Jeff. This must be a fairly early application of Harem. To our knowledge, it originated at Alphabet Innovations, which was started by Phil Martin in 1969.

    The small differences between repeating letters – see especially the widths of E and T – and the perfect fit of convex and concave shapes suggest that this isn’t a direct use, but rather hand lettering. Or maybe this is a piece of original lettering, and the Harem typeface was inspired by it?!

  2. The latter is very possible, Florian. Martin derived a lot of his typefaces from existing lettering. Planet of the Apes/Thrust may be another example.

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