Favorite Christmas Carols from the Voice of Firestone album art

Published December 25, 2024

By FontsInUse

Contributed by Javi Gonzalez

Starting in 1962, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company issued a series of seven annual Christmas albums. From Discogs:

The first three albums in the series were produced by Forrell, Thomas & Polack Associates, Inc. The last four, by Forell & Thomas, Inc. The manufacturer of the records is not identified explicitly. But based on the data printed on the labels and inscribed in the runout of the records, volumes 1, 2, 3 ,5 and 7 were manufactured by the custom records division of RCA Records, and Volumes 4 and 6 were manufactured by Capitol Records.

While the initial release was titled “Favorite Christmas Carols”, the following albums were named “Your Favorite Christmas Carols”. Apart from the changing colors and credits, the basic design is always the same, depicting a large ribbon with mistletoe against an ornamental wrapping paper in the background. The title typeface is Cloister Black, used with a non-standard Y (in “Your”) and the alternate form for V (in “Vol.”), cf. ATF’s 1923 specimen.

Other text on most of the covers is set in designs by Filmotype, namely Rodgers, Wasp, and Fleet. Volume 5 is an exception in that it replaces Rodgers with Caslon Bold Condensed – which was carried by Filmotype as “CA51”. Some smaller bits also use the bold weight of Trade Gothic Extended. Lastly, the text on the golden starburst stickers is in all-caps Clarendon.

Read full story.

WRITTEN BY

FontsInUse

An independent archive of typography.