Beautiful & illuminating

books:


	• Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005 Phil Baines Penguin (Non-Classics), 2006 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Design history

A light but enlightening journey through the evolution of cover designs, as impacted by world events, technology and taste. Particularly interesting for those in the industry.

A FANTASTIC PURCHASE

Hi from Barcelona.
First of all, sorry for my really bad english.
I really recomend the purchase in Amazon.
No problem whit anything, all is perfect.
I think that the book of Phil Baines (Penguin by Design) is one of the obligated purchases for any graphic designer. Perfect design and perfect information.
Thanks Phil!!!

Marc

for more information click here

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.

for more information click here

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.

for more information click here

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.

for more information click here

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.

for more information click here

hot