Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005 [Paperback]

PHIL BAINES (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: ALLEN LANE (2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0713998393
• ISBN-13: 978-0713998399
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 7.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,776,174 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful & illuminating, April 17, 2006

By 

J. DAVIDSON (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005 (Mass Market Paperback)

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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Covering creativity, October 7, 2007

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005 (Mass Market Paperback)

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A treasury, January 4, 2009

By 

Robert C. Ross (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005 (Mass Market Paperback)

Penquin books have been a great joy ever since I discovered them in college many years ago. This fine collection is a trip down memory lane with beautiful designs and intriguing hints of the pleasures inside.

It's wonderful to see that so many of the books are still in print. An excellent sampling of the covers, including the ability to blow them up for closer inspection, appears on the Penquin Books website.

Also, my thanks to Robin Benson for his illustrations here on Amazon; they sold me on buying the book. Well done!

Robert C. Ross 2009