The covers of Penguin books are classics, with their
simplistic use of typography, colour and clear layout structure. A concept
devised by Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin Books, who considered illustrated
covers at the time to be trashy and maintained that his book jackets follow a
plain horizontal grid. Each genre was represented by its own colour dominating
the frount cover: fiction was orange, biographies were blue and crime was
green.
Penguin’s creed for distinctive cover design would continue
to be followed by Jan Tschichold and Germano Facetti during the 1940s and 1960s
respectively. Tschichold had a firm belief in typographic systems and was
responsible for the most iconic features of Penguin Books: he designed the
original template of the title and author’s name separated by a line, adapted the
Penguin logo into different variations, and produced a set of Composition Rules
so each cover would maintain the same design. Twenty years later Facetti gave
Penguin Books an edgy and contemporary reinvention, with brighter colours and
visually exciting images.
Penguin's design is similar in approach to what I go for in my own work - clear, balanced and informative. Penguin has held the test of time, something that I am aware that I need to achieve!
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