Sometimes, when browsing my collection, I am lucky to find something special — an alternative record sleeve that is clearly superior to the original design for that record. These alternatives are often local, like the Italian re-release of the American single “Pipeline”. Or the credits lack, and the design was maybe local — like the probably-Dutch unique design for a Philips release.

Here is another one; Dutch as well. “Funkytown” by Minneapolis act Lipps, Inc. was one of the most successful electronic disco singles of 1979–1980. Sold millions, hit number 1 on hitparades all over the world.

Most early editions of this disco song were packed in a somewhat kitschy sleeve, illustrated with a fashionable drawing of two pink lady faces (see Discogs), This typographic design, in contrast, has style! The image is simply a sound wave, all text set in the contemporary display font Camellia. It was a Letraset release which was usually “typeset” by transferring single letters from that brand’s dry sheets to the paper. Camellia was a simplified family — just two fonts, a narrow and a broader one, both only lower case, combinable within one word. A digital version from Linotype only contains the broad one, ignoring an important aspect of Letraset designer Tony Wenman’s concept.

[More info on Discogs]

Camellia in use on the cover of Force Majeure, an album released by the German group Tangerine Dream in 1979. The cover painting is by Monica Froese (1947–2000, here credited as Monique Froese), who provided art and photographs for several records by Tangerine Dream as well as by other bands. Froese used Camellia again for Pinnacles, a solo album by her husband Edgar, issued in 1983. The pre-digital version came with glyphs in two widths. Only the wide ones were used here. The slender all-lowercase face by Tony Wenman was also chosen for a number of recent releases by Tangerine Dream, see e.g. The Sessions I–V (2017–2019) and Recurring Dreams (2019). The small type on the back cover of Force Majeure seems to be Eurostile.

[More info on Discogs]

Back cover.

Cassette cover

The sticker pairs outlined styles from Gill Sans and Compacta.

Letraset’s Camellia (1972) is not exactly a variable font. In fact, the rub-down type came in a single style only. And yet it was flexible enough to playfully place all text onto the tree’s bark. While the long band name is composed from Camellia’s narrow glyphs, the short album title exclusively features its wide forms.

Paix (“peace”) is the fourth album by French progressive rock group Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes, released in 1972. Cover photo by Jean-Pierre Leloir (1931–2010). Printed by Imprimerie JAT. [Discogs]

Sign in Camellia on the façade of a closed-down shoe store in Zwickau, Saxony. Camellia is an all-lowercase/unicase face designed by Tony Wenman and issued by Letraset in 1972. It comes with wide and narrow forms for all letters. This sign exclusively uses the former. The original stub ascenders on h were lengthened for better legibility. The Konsum logo with the K made from a smokestack and a sickle reveals that this store dates back to the GDR days. Documented by Monsieur Adrien in September 2019.

Source: ellarecords.jp Ella Records (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

From Reggaepedia:

Mabrak was the group founded by drummer Leroy Trevor Mabrak. Leroy Mabrak was originally also a member of the group Count Ossie & the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari whith which he had visited the US in 1972. The group Mabrak was originally named Genesis. In 1974 the drumming section of Mabrak won two of four medals awarded for drumming in the Jamaica National Drum Music Finals. In 1975 they recorded a 45 rpm – at King Tubby’s studio – entitled “Drum Talk” – the single being one of the very first, if not the first, records to feature the talking drum as a lead instrument. The song was chosen to be the theme song for the Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth Conference held at the Pegasus Hotel in Kingston in 1975.

Mabrak’s debut album was recorded in 1976 at Harry J’s Studio and mixed by King Tubby. First released on Jigsaw in 1976 under the title Ital Talk – Liquid Talk, the shown cover is for the Different Records release from 1978, renamed after the popular song.

Designer Dave Field of Smart Art chose all-caps Motter Ombra for the cover. On the back, he added a second Letraset release: the track names are composed from Camellia, issued in 1972 in their Letragraphica range. Tony Wenman’s lowercase-only design offers wide and narrow forms for all letters.

Source: ellarecords.jp Ella Records (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Back cover with the band name in stacked caps from Motter Ombra. The King Tubby credit is added in Melior. Small print features the Selectric version of Univers.

Field used the wide ones for the track names and the narrow ones for the side headers – with a few exceptions: in the latter, d and o get to be wide. Maybe the headers otherwise would have become too compact and different? And in the former, three of the twelve instances of k are narrow. This may have to do with the economics of dry transfer lettering: a sheet of 60pt Camellia included three wide and three narrow k’s. If Field worked with this size and wanted to use the wide one for all twelve occurrences, he would have needed four sheets. The deviation from the rule allowed him to do with just three.

Source: www.vayocollagegallery.com Vayo Collage Gallery. License: All Rights Reserved.

A Letragraphica sheet with 84pt Camellia. This size offered only four k’s – two wide and two narrow ones.

Source: www.vayocollagegallery.com Vayo Collage Gallery. License: All Rights Reserved.

A Letragraphica sheet with 60pt Camellia comprises six k’s – three wide and three narrow ones.

[More info on Discogs]