Sexy Type: The Classics

Noah Nazir

Last edited September 04, 2018

Can type be sexy? Erotic art exists since prehistoric man started painting on cave walls. The first erotic alphabets appeared soon after the invention of printing in the mid-15th century, yet these were illustrations rather than type, with copulating human bodies creating the letter forms.

However, for one decade – from the early 1970s to the early-to-mid 1980s – erotic art and commercial art converged during the Golden Age of Porn. Recurring typefaces on adult film posters of the porno chic period were characterised by soft and voluptuous letter forms, curvacious shapes with swirling swashes and ligatures, big ball terminals and liquid loops.

Compiled to accompany my Creative Mornings talk in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA on April 11, 2014, this Fontlist features the classic sexy faces from the 70s.

The Handel Gothic™ typeface has been a mainstay of graphic communication for over 40 years - all the while looking as current as tomorrow. Designed by Don Handel in the mid-1960s, and used in the 1973 United Airlines logo developed by Saul Bass, Handel Gothic was an instant success when released to the graphic design community. Its generous lowercase x-height, full-bodied counters and square... Read More

Colin Brignall designed the Tango typeface in 1974. A groovy swirl of a font, Tango looks like disco party ready to lift off. Tango is one of many fonts that have come to symbolize the party music of the 1970s, familiar forms can be found on countless album covers from that era. Tango is a child of it's times - flashy, lively, and fun!

Everybody knows the iconic Black version, but thanks to their sturdy yet soft character shapes and large x-height the lighter weights of Cooper work surprisingly well as text faces.

The first cuts of Kabel appeared in 1927, released by the German foundry Gebr. Klingspor. Like many of the typefaces that Rudolf Koch... Read More

When looking from up close the reader can imagine the shape of the female body in the rounded serifs and sensuous curves of Oswald Cooper’s eponymous display face.

In the 1970s Ed Benguiat polished the original Bookman, removing many of its quirks and replacing the oblique with true italics. The swashes are smoother and meatier than the ones found in the source material.

ITC Bookman was an instant success when it was first released in 1976. The design was an interpretation of the original Bookman typeface... Read More

If you are in need of sensual curves and big balls you need not look any further than this high-contrast French buxom beauty.

In this design based on Carola Grotesk (H.Berthold & Bauer type foundries) and Boutique (Haas type foundry) the swollen rounded stroke endings leave little to the imagination.