Recently I found a wonderful-to-look-at pictorial archive of Pelican book covers by year. Pelican is the non-fiction brand of Penguin Books and, according to Wikipedia, the idea behind the first paperback Penguin Books was to “provide quality writing cheaply, for the same price as a pack of cigarettes.” The publisher decided that design was essential to Penguin’s success, so the first covers, from the 1930s, were simple layouts that used two colors and Eric Gill’s sans serif for the typeface (like the “Ariel” cover to the right). Over time images and illustrations were added to the cover designs. As you might guess, I especially like the one for “Riddles in Mathematics” from 1953. See the entire archive here and read a good article about the history of Penguin’s book design on the Design Museum website.
One more nerdy bit for those like me interested in book design and page layout: Jan Tschichold was the designer at Penguin from 1947-49. He fashioned a template for all Penguin books called Penguin Composition Rules, a four page booklet of typographic instructions for editors and compositors. You can read them here. Jordon Harper adapted them to web writing here.
Book cover designs are so fascinating.
And you can judge a publishing house by its marketing.
Perhaps it started the year Penguin turned 70, but that quintessential Penguin design now sells lots more than books. If you’re so inclined, you can buy espresso cups emblazoned with classic Penguin covers! But wait, there’s more: deck chairs, coffee and tea mugs, pencils, shopping bags and, alas, tea towels.
I like the cover of “Penguin By Design: A Cover Story 1935–2005,” which you can see here.