’72 It's a Great Year Any Way You Look At It [Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnese]

’72 It’s a Great Year Any Way You Look At It, 1972, self-promotion, Lubalin, Smith, Carnese, New York, USA. 9 x 9, single-sided New Year’s greeting and holiday card printed with two-colors (black and green) on a glossy coated stock. Art Direction by Herb Lubalin with Tom Carnase lettering.

Uncommon. A quintessential, numerical typographic ambigram by Herb Lubalin with Tom Carnase lettering featuring crafted contrasts, bulging shapes, hairline strokes and serifs. The clever “72” when viewed upside down or right side up retains its’ meaning and remains the same.

There were several iterations of this greeting card; the first (’69 Was Good ’72 Is Better) announces the year 1972 as featured at the excellent FlatFile series (Issue No. 6) by Alexander Tochilovsky, curator of the Herb Lubalin Study Center who said “The lettering on the card is by the skillful hand of Tom Carnase, in a Spencerian style—the aesthetic most associated with Herb Lubalin, even though he never did his own lettering. The natural shapes of the 7 and the 2 are similar, but not quite what this achieves. What a fun way to usher in the 70s!”

A nearly fine, bright white New Year's greeting and holiday card with a small paper-clip dent to the upper right hand corner and a hint of blemishes to the black printed numbers. Would look lovely framed!