typeworship:

Tour Type

I was recently looking through the portfolio of graphic artist Neil Stevens and saw his retro-style posters for the different Tour de France stages. As a keen cyclist in and around London, these really appealed to me. The lettering based compositions successfully mix a number of historical graphic styles all hinging around the ’50s looking cyclist. 

I spoke to Neil about the typefaces used. The chunky numbers used as the main character in 1, 4 & 5 (together with their ‘2012’s) are Pompadour and numeral only typeface by Andy Mangold, inspired by Rockabilly hair. The uppercase typeface, with the horizontal spurs through the middle, is Haymaker, They are both available from the Lost Type Co-op, a fascinating ‘pay-what-you-want’ foundry. The outline type (“2012” in no.7) is Post Office, a free font.

“In some posters I customised Haymaker a little by placing key lines within the font so at times it looks a little different. This was just to add a bit more of a ‘display’ element to it.”

Neil is based in St Albans and London in the UK. These 2012 Tour prints have featured in The Sunday Telegraph, Esquire, Cycle Plus, Cycle Active, Sport Magazine and Phaidon.com and are available to purchase.