“It doesn’t seem surprising that when people are trying to find something comforting, we don’t want something that feels Swiss, which can bleed into fascism,” says Goodspeed. Elizabeth Goodspeed, a graphic designer who works at the branding agency RoAndCo, believes that for many consumers, ’70s-esque fonts represent a safe retreat into the past - a safer retreat, importantly, than the one currently offered by midcentury Swiss Style, which inspired all of those minimalist startup logos with its grid layouts and sans serif fonts. Today’s movement toward fonts reminiscent of the ’70s is partly a matter of advancing technology, Jen says: As phone and TV screens have improved, designers don’t have to worry as much about pixelation when working with curves. It wasn’t all psychedelia and bubbly fonts: Herb Lubalin, a titan of 1970s graphic design, made looping, thick typefaces, but he also produced Avant Garde, a sharp, angular style recently used as the title card in Netflix’s Master of None.Ī post shared by Glossier Play on at 11:38am PDT “Stylistically, the ’70s were really exuberant and free, and also extremely diverse,” says Natasha Jen, a partner at the design firm Pentagram and the creator of Buffy’s custom logotype. Cooper Black was released in 1922, but in the ’60s and ’70s it made notable appearances on album covers from The Doors, Curtis Mayfield, and The Beatles. It was famously used on the cover of the counterculture magazine the Whole Earth Catalog and in Woody Allen’s film titles, including 1977’s Annie Hall. Consider the typeface Windsor, which was crafted in 1905 and, according to the Font Review Journal, had its heyday between the 1960s and ’80s.

Many of the typefaces that we associate with the ’60s and ’70s were actually created decades before, though they’re informing the present-day design landscape because of how they were used in the ’70s.

Now that the simple, utilitarian look has run its course, companies and branding agencies are turning to fonts with a more expressive, human feel. Particularly in the startup space, the early 2010s were absolutely dominated by sans serifs and minimalist design, a trend that was itself a reaction to the chaotic typography of the 1990s. Why you’re seeing it everywhere: Branding trends always exist in relation to what came immediately before aesthetics are a powerful way for a company to stand out from its competitors, and once a particular look reaches oversaturation, it’s time to move on. A post shared by Great Jones on at 7:59am PST

70s chinese style font