Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005

by Phil Baines

Ever since the creation of the first Penguin paperbacks in 1935, their jackets have become a constantly evolving part of Anglo-American culture and design history. By looking back at seventy years of Penguin paperbacks, graphic designer Phil Baines charts the development of British publishing, the ever-changing currents of cover art and style, and the role of artists and designers in creating and designing the Penguin look including Penguins, Pelicans, Penguin Classics, and more. Rich with stunning illustrations and filled with details about individual titles, designers, and even the changing size and shape of the Penguin logo itself, Penguin by Design shows how covers become design classics."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0141024232
• ISBN13: 9780141024233
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.2" x 8.6"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Great gift for book/art lovers

As a book lover as well as an art lover, I wanted this beautiful book as soon as I saw it. So I bought it and then realized it was a perfect birthday gift for a friend who is a graphic artist and an admirer of classic Penguin book design. He loved it, of course. So then I had to order another one for myself. Definitely a keeper.

Penguin love

Among the first books I ever stole (being poor) were Penguins, because they were the most interesting, the best designed, and -- oh I don't know -- the most "bookish"? I wanted to be (would become) a writer. I was stupid-young, self-absorbed, pliably amoral -- and broke. Now here's the company's entire story told through covers. Pictorial. Visceral. Brilliant. More love per exhibit than a non-bibliophile can imagine. Now that I have an income I buy hundreds of book I don't especially need in flagrant pay-back mode. Thank you, Penguin. My first love.

Covering creativity

What a loving tribute to Allen Lane, the visionary who founded Penguin Books in 1935. Few publishers have consistently put their best `face' forward year after year over thousands of titles and I find it surprising that this Penguin cover history hasn't been written before 2005. Admittedly most of their covers until the Fifties, though distinctive in the three-tier horizontal design, were not that creative but things slowly changed no doubt because of market pressure from other paperback publishers. I thought Penguin covers really took of in 1962 with the use of Romek Marber's simple cover grid. Pages 104-5 in the book show eighteen brilliant covers using simple graphics with black, green and red inks. The grid cover style ran into the seventies with the non-fiction Pelicans and nicely still using everybody's favorite type: Helvetica. Author Phil Baines has done a lot of research for the book though it is basically visual with excellent short text pieces for the various title genres. A nice touch is spread of forty-eight Penguin logos from 1935 to 2005 at the back of the book and it is this kind of editorial thoughtfulness that makes the book so interesting. ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

Beautiful & illuminating

I picked this up because of the book's physical beauty, but I've just read it in one sitting, couldn't put it down--a fascinating window into 20th-century British cultural history as well as book design.