The font is based on the Avant Garde magazine (hence the name) logotype designed by Herb Lubalin, hence its inferiority to Futura (in my unsolicited opinion).

So, it's technically on the cover of Avant Garde, in that its inspiration is there, but they aren't all the same letterforms. For example, the Vs in the logotype have a vertical left extender, rather than an angled one. This would be a fun/ relevant example, at least, if not a strict example.

Some covers of Avant Garde magazine:

http://www.the-forum.com/ephemera/avant.htm

>the Vs in the logotype have a vertical left

I think those were actually included in the original Avant Garde release as ligatures. I seem to recall that there was an entire series of cool display ligatures - even for the rub-down letters. But probably not for any digital release.

Lubalin's Family Circle logotype comes to mind - although it's not Avant Garde, no doubt, but once again in the same vein.

And surely to god U&lc used Avant Garde back in the day. If there are any issues of that around.

A few more samples here:

http://www.graphic-design.com/Type/Avant/Avant2.html

There was a time when you could not think of Avant Garde
without thinking of its ligatures. And, like Grant's link above
says, nobody but Lubalin knew what to do with them. For
those not familiar with the face in its original form, here is
one of the weights in all its glory:

That's great, Mark. I suppose I'm tipping my typographic hand a bit now. The ligatures certainly add a dimension that I wasn't aware of.

Avant Garde was held up critically next to Futura by one of my professors back in school, with great disdain. She said she'd give us a 'retro-active F' if she caught us using it. In retrospect, she was probably just violently steering us away from using it as a text face...

...now that I look at it, was that the typeface for the movie Alien? Not the one used on the poster, but the one used in the title sequence. Or am I confusing it with Altered States now?

My cursory web research reveals that it may be a similar condensed face for Alien 3, but Avant Garde for Altered States.

Curiously the Mobil face is not Avant Garde.
It's a custom face done in the late 60's early 70's.
By whom, I 'm not sure.

Altered States was Avant Garde, Alien was Helvetica Black,
Aliens was Univers 39, Alien3 was ITC Kabel (stretched), and
Alien Resurrection was Microgramma/Eurostile (modified)
with Helvetica Ultra Compressed. (I guess maybe this thread
should have been on the Type ID Board after all. :-)

my fave is still
http://www.p22.com/AvantCrossingGarde.jpg

I think the key phrase is

Mobil's logotype was, IIRC, designed by Chermayeff & Geismar.

Grant, thanks for those ligatures!

Chermayeff & Geismar designed the identity for Mobil in 1964, the logo was custom drawn. It does resemble Avant Garde, but there are many subtle differences. They also created a propriatery typeface for Mobil (based on the logo), a full page color example of it can be found in their recently published book "designing:"

Here's a low res b/w image of it:



� 2003 Chermayeff & Geismar Inc.

I seem to recall that the British band "Travis" used a version of Avant Garde, (with ligatures), on the covers of their albums, more precisely in the logotype "Travis."
Here's an example of one of the covers.

a recent Ashanti CD used Avant Garde nicely.
I'll see if I can find an example later today.

bj

It's like Avant Garde was designed for home users to create logos. All those ligatures just beg to have logos made for anything and everything. That's probably why its everywhere.

As for Ashanti... here's the cover BJ posted about: http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00009VRDI.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

The band Travis didn't start using that logotype until their releases surrounding "The Man Who" (instead they used the one shown here: http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000002BZD.01.LZZZZZZZ.gif ); however, the logo has stuck ever since and I'm pretty sure they're gonna take it to their grave.

I know this is well past your deadline, Elin (sorry :-/ ), but I thought you might enjoy this. I think it was posted to Typophile by someone in the past, but I don't recall who. Apologies for the size.

Ow, my eyes! I'm going back in time to take away the ligatures from whoever perpetrated that flier.

A while back I was looking for the AG alternates and found one place that sells them as fonts: FontShop Australia. Go figure, mate.

>FontShop Australia.

Sweet. I'll keep that in mind.

N.B. to Nathan: The bus safety poster was posted by Richard Kegler, and, in fact, he mentions it on this page above and provides a link to the post you can't quite remember. :-)

N.B. to self: Read the entire bloody thread before posting like an idiot ;-)

the british store habitat commissioned a font based on avant garde for one of their catalogues 3-4 years ago. it was a very light weight and had terminals based on playing-card suits (heart, club etc).

further details to come..

I thought Habitat was Spanish.

hhp