April – “Sweet Song Bird” / “Help!” and “Never Too Late” / “And Tomorrow Means Another Day” single covers
![First single from 1971 [More info on Discogs]](https://assets.fontsinuse.com/static/use-media-items/149/148341/full-1117x1149/62b76680/April%20Sweet%20Song%20Bird.jpeg)
First single from 1971 [More info on Discogs]
Alice is the artist’s name of Joyce Evadney Ploquin. Originally from the West Indies, the musician moved from London to Paris to record her soul music. [Ungawa] In 1971 and 1972, Epic Records released two singles in their Gemini and AKT series.
The extrabold left-heavy caps are from a typeface that’s shown in Berthold’s E1 catalog from 1974 as Jumbo, in one extended all-caps width plus an oblique. In their E3 from 1982, it’s credited to Gustav Jäger, 1973. At least the date can’t be right – maybe it refers to a revision – as Jumbo apparently was available already in 1971. I can imagine its name was inspired by the introduction of the first “Jumbo Jet”, the Boing 747, in 1970.
While the word “Alice” is shown in horizontally stretched letters, the song titles on the first single were squeezed to around 70% of Jumbo’s original width. The robust design can withstand such a treatment better than some others, but it still shows in the curvature of letters like S, G, D, P.
![Second single from 1972. The track names are set in all-lowercase . [More info on Discogs] A third single followed in 1973, now with for the name (not pictured here).](https://assets.fontsinuse.com/static/use-media-items/148/147346/full-1157x740/62b76671/s-l1600.jpeg)
Second single from 1972. The track names are set in all-lowercase Pump. [More info on Discogs] A third single followed in 1973, now with Bookman for the name (not pictured here).
