Ace Jet 170

Bookchase

 

For the Penguin lover in your life, it's The Great Penguin Bookchase.
Available through Art Meets Matter.

A quartet of watery foul

The CR Blog posted their second extract from the brilliant Penguin by Illustrators yesterday. This time it's the bit about the amazing David Gentleman. My offering is much more humble with Pelicans designed by the prolific Romek Marber and Bruce Robertson. Marber's is quite subtle but makes great use of not white but blue space. Some might say Robertson's shows flagrant disregard for Marber's grid but I suspect he knew exactly what he was doing.

The first Penguin is uncredited even though it's clearly well considered. The other has been here before but I couldn't resist another copy of a Milton Glaser cover.

 

 

Simone deux Pingouin

I found a couple of curious Penguins at the weekend. In a box with other less interestingly covered de Beauvoirs, I thought they're both top-notch but, from a brand point of view, beg questions. First off, they were both published in 1967 and yet they're so different (a time of uncertainty at the publishers?). 

Although both have Marber-grid factors, both are departures: "Memoirs..." has lost horizontal lines, the "long" title alternative positioning and, obviously, uses caps. "She Came..." on the other hand is a much more dramatic shift in direction: a brand new position for the enlarged and newly coloured type, and a bird that's grown considerably. Interesting pricing too. 

I guess "Memoirs..." could be a straight or near-straight re-print of the first-time-for-Penguin 1963 edition, while "She Came..." (de Beauvoir's first novel) was published by Penguin for the first time just a year earlier in '66. I suppose that all kind of makes sense. But still, an opportunity to release both with similar covers must have been considered.

Differences apart, they're still both excellent covers but "She Came..." is, to my eyes, a stonker! That beautiful cover illustration is by the enigmatic Giannetto Coppola. Can't find anything about the man and from what other covers I can find, this is, by his own standards, an exceptional piece of work. Very stylish, very "sixty's".

Incidentally, the other cover is by Penguin stalwart Alan Spain.

Futures Past

 

 

James Pardey has expanded his Penguin Sci-Fi website with material that's now bang up-to-date. Including the latest Penguin Modern Classics just or soon to be released. James has also been writing a series of superb articles for the Penguin Collectors' Society, chronicling Penguin's relationship with SF. Two have already been published in the last two editions of The Penguin Collector. The final part will be out in December.

Cover Versions

 

Erik has turned two of his favourite songs by OJ and the 80s most influential unknown band Felt into 2' x 3' Penguin/Pelican covers. 

Penguin by Illustrators

 

Here we go again: me, spouting on about why you should join the Penguin Collectors Society. It goes like this: it doesn't cost much and it's great, really great. I mean, it's Penguin, so Phil Baines' is in it, Len Deighton's kicking around, Romek Marber's grid is all over the place, Milton Glaser chips in, the list goes on. Pick up a vintage Penguin and look for the design credit...chances are, if you're a designer, it'll be by someone you've heard of. Or if not, and you dig around, you'll probably discover it's someone you should have heard of.

Even if you're not a designer, if you're reading this you're interested in books or collecting or something and that's what the PCS is all about so if you sign up and pay a very few quid you'll get stuff through your door every now and then that'll be really interesting. And perhaps once a year (or is it once every two years?) a book'll turn up and it'll be worth two, three or even four year's of membership fees.

Penguin by Illustrators, which has just been sent out to members, is the culmination of two years of work which started with the second PCS Study Day at the V&A on March 24 2007. The first took place in 2005 and was organised to coincide with Penguin's 70th Anniversary. That one was Penguin by Designers and brought together many contributors from years gone by. The book that followed was superb. This time Penguin by Illustrators and is a more lavish publication. I only got it on Saturday so haven't read much, but flicking through there's plenty to get excited about, including details on key contributors, along with some of their non-Penguin work. What's most pleasing to see is work that's bang up to date, like Victoria Sawdon's work for the Great Journeys series and the stunning work of Coralie Bickford-Smith that I'd mentioned at the end of last year.

      

Penguin Sci-Fi

James Pardey is building a superb archive of Penguin Science Fiction cover designs. PCS members: watch out for James' articles in The Collector.

Odder

After Vicki's comment on the last post I double checked today to see if that book was, as I'd first assumed, a book of short stories and not just a title coincidentally worded, which I admit would have been odd. Of course, it is a collection of short stories so no odd coincidence there. Except that, unknown to me until today, the second story is called, "Odd".

Odd.

Odd

 

I've been quietly adding to my Penguin/Pelican collection over the last year and found this one the other day. Greg commented on it's Flickr entry that he hadn't seen a Marber-Grid Penguin with a colour photo on before. I can't think of another either, although there may well be some. It is an oddity isn't it? Intriguingly, odd image. Brilliant and odd. And, credited to Herbert Spencer.

Incidentally, if you've got $4,000 going spare, you can buy a complete set of Spencer's Typographicas here.

/'pengwin/ n. flightless black and white sea bird of the southern hemisphere, with wings developed into flippers for swimming underwater

Designer and writer Charles Foster has very generously sent me a big box of Penguins and Pelicans which included this superb cover by Keith Whitehead (published in 1965).