Bizarre Bazaar

Around 1969, British Harper’s Bazaar [paperpursuits.com] had a bit of an identity crisis. It only lasted for a year and a bit, the outcome of which saw it merge with it’s main competitor, Queen magazine [wikipedia], to become Harper’s & Queen [vinmag.com]. But before this weird hybrid mag was born, they did some really interesting ‘messing about’ with the Bazaar identity. Looking very Biba [bibaexperience.com], even the masthead was dramatically redrawn in a sort of 60s/20s homage to Art Deco. Sans serifs were employed throughout in the magazine, which was rare for a fashion magazine at the time, namely Gill Sans.

A few years ago, I worked on the ‘Girl’ issue of a London-based music and lifestyle, and was so inspired by this 1969 edition of British Bazaar that I had a crack at building the typeface myself. It was only ever used for this special edition of the magazine and has been languishing on my hard drive ever since… until now. It’s not for sale because it’s unfinished but here’s a beta version of the ExtraLight weight available for free download for you to muck about with. Let me know what you think.

[ Download Bazaar ExtraLight Beta ]