Question

Looking to ID this font I used back in 1990 on a record cover project. I have tried many search fields online.

Answer 1

Looks to be Benguiat Interlock Medium Condensed (first sample under the Interlocks header on left hand page).

 

Its entry on Fonts in Use.

Comments

Oh, thank you so much! I have spent days trying to figure this out! I obviously stretched it horizontally, but that's the font!

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Phototypesetting, I presume? Sadly, I don't think that weight is availabe in House Industry's digital revival of the face.

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It was an actual font back in the day, I believe, but I don't recall the foundry. I could certainly be wrong. It's been a minute.

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You’re probably thinking of Ed Interlock, the digital interpretation that Kevin mentioned.

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So you did use a digital font on your computer, and didn’t order a setting from Photo-Lettering, Inc in New York? If that’s the case, then there either was an official digitization* that’s long discontinued, or an unofficial one. I haven’t heard of either.

 

*) In the early 1990s, PLINC started a late and half-hearted attempt to bring their library to the digital age. I’m aware of about two dozen typefaces that were digitized, including Prisma Graphic (©1992), for example. Some of these are now distributed by Monotype (apparently obtained from AGFA), incl. PL Westerveldt, PL Fiorello, PL (West) Barnum Block.

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I know for certain that I didn't order anything from Photo-Lettering, Inc. I feel like it was an actual font, as it appears that I stretched the type horizontally to better fill the space I had to work with. It was either a font I had at the time, or something I had typeset at a place called DC Type, South of Market in San Francisco around 1989/1990.

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At that time it sounds like it was a film font. Many phototype suppliers offered styles similar to Benguiat Interlock, such as as Safari from Headliners or Monza from Lettergraphics, which you can see under the Related Typefaces on Fonts In Use. DC Type would have fonts on negatives supplied from one of these companies.