Typophile

Late 1950s - Early 1960s Newspaper Typesetting

Ryan Standfest0 votes

Hello,

I am currently assembling a book for publication, and I am trying to format the titles of each chapter to resemble bold headlines from the 1950s/1960s. Not being a typographer, this is all very new to me, but I do have a firm idea of what I am seeking.

So what I can glean from a previous conversation is that what was mostly used was a font called "Tempo" in Heavy and Heavy Italic...? However, this is not currently available in a digital form-- only a condensed version...?

Additionally, I am curious as to what the typical typeface was for the bylines, photo captions and main body of text...?

From what I've been able to research briefly, it seems that Corona, Excelsior, News Gothic and Franklin Gothic are all possibilities for newspaper body text. Can anyone confirm this? I'm concerned with placing this within the late 1950s-early 1960s, so authenticity is very important. It seems these typefaces were used with Linotype...

I'd really appreciate any help/suggestions with this.

Thank you very much!

John Savard0 votes

Some newspapers of that period used Bodoni Bold for their headlines - it was more common than the sans-serif typeface in your example. So that, at least, is available. And Corona was indeed the most likely form of body text. Fortunately, Bitstream has a very similar face available - News 705. News 702 is similar to Excelsior, and News 701 to Ionic No. 5, also very common for newspaper body copy, but more so at somewhat earlier dates.

Ryan Standfest0 votes

quadibloc:

Thank you very much for the information. I am quite partial to those sans-serif headlines-- it gives them a tabloid-feel. I think that of the body text, the Excelsior is quite nice and very easy to read.

Cheers.

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