Stevie Wonder - Songs In The Key of Life - album cover font

Question

I'm trying to design a poster for my husband for our 10 yr anniversary with the lyrics of a song from this album which we had as our first dance, and would love to identify the font for the poster.  Many thanks indeed!

Answer 1

Hi Julie-Anne,

Please keep in mind that not all letterforms are typographic, i.e. derived from fonts. My hunch is that the cover is hand-lettered – it may use letterforms that were drawn just for this purpose, and are not available as a font. While technically possible, it is rather unlikely that typographic text set on a curve has such good joins and even spacing. Furthermore, some details that would be identical in a font are different here. Most notably, compare the lower loop in the two ‘S’s, or the top right part of the three ‘o’s.

You might be interested in digitally available fonts that come somewhat close.
• Insouciant is an upright script in several weights. Its capitals are more simplified than those on the cover: http://www.terminaldesign.com/fonts/insouciant-complete-family/
• Adage Script is not as upright, but you could get away with backslanting it by a few degrees: http://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/13074/adage-script-jf
By the way, the script used on the back cover for the track list is Snell Roundhand: http://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/58/snell-roundhand