Ace Jet 170

Homage to Romek

 

Around the middle of 2017 I made one of these, just for the pleasure of sewing those lines and pinning those pins: The Marber Grid, rendered in cotton thread and map pins on a canvas board. A tribute to Romek's very clever system that brought unity to so many Penguin and Pelican covers through the 60s and 70s.

It was pretty well received on the social medias back then and again more recently when I made one for friend-from-the-internet Daniel Benneworth-Gray. So I'm now making them them to order — there are a few of them out there now, hanging on various walls.

The grid is re-created, by hand, at actual size, as the great designer intended it, i.e. Penguin and Pelican paperback size.

I've mounted mine in a 30 x 40cm Gunnabo from IKEA but they don't seem to be available now so I've switched to the Hovsta (available in dark brown, medium brown and birch). These have the necessary extra depth for the map pins and I'd be happy to supply the 'Homage' framed the same way, or you can take care of framing yourself.

There's a bit of work involved but I'm keeping my pricing as tight as a taut thread, hence: 
Framed: £75 / Unframed: £65

Happy to include UK postage and packaging in that cost but will have to charge a little extra if you're further afield – I'll let you know how much before you commit. If you'd like one email me by clicking here. We can arrange payment through PayPal (if you don't have an account it's really easy to sign up). Allow around two to three weeks for me to make your 'Homage to Romek'.

 

Map pins mark the critical grid points:

One grey thread represents the broken line on RM's original drawing.

Click each image for a closer look.

 

—
Post updated 31.12.17

Exhibit "P"

Of all the Pelican Books, it had to happen on this one. If you've ever scrutinised Marber's grid construction you'll know Romek worked hard to allow for any eventuality. Including what to do with a long and/or awkward title.

Compared to the original diagram this cover seams to deviate only very slightly; the original didn't feature that 'a' before 'Pelican Book' and had a lining up point on its 'P' but the principal was the same. And yet that title; well, it's wrong isn't it? Kind of centred but of course not quite, because it's not supposed to be. Should the "Years of" have been run onto the next line? Easily fixed…

A bit of a shame because despite the rather sloppy composition on the cover, inside it's an exceptional, particularly well illustrated Pelican.

Mother

As unlikely as it might seem, I really wasn't expecting to appear here yesterday - I thought it was going somewhere else. Needless to say, totally thrilled about it anyway. 

Spinewear

Gijs Sierman emailed me through my Flickr account last week. Knowing of my deep-rooted love of the pelecanidae waterfowl named paperbacks, he thought I might be interested in his limited edition, and I must say, strangely magnificent shirts. For his someshirt project, bespoke fabrics are printed in order to cut and craft just 60 shirts. Too tailored for my ever expanding self and somewhat out of my price range, they are, undeniably unique. It's not a shirt you'd…ehum…leave on the…you know…

Penguin/Pelican Credits (Overdue)

Much to the delight of the rest of my family, I got ALL of my Penguin and Pelican paperbacks out last week. Took a few photos but also updated my Flickr sets with design credits for Main Series, Crime, Education, Specials and Pelicans.

Take a look if you're curious.

David Pearson at Walker Art Center

Fletcher Spain Spain Robertson

A couple more for here and here. Two Penguin Crimes with covers by Alan Spain (two of many for Ed McBain's books) as well as a Fletcher and a Robertson for Pelican.

Tri-Pelican Expansion

I've just added a few more Pelicans to Flickr. If you haven't seen my collection, it's here.

Flock Stock

Another handful added.

The Flockers

Do Penguins flock? Not sure. Probably. Although certainly not the paperback kind; they seem a little thin on the ground nowadays. It's taken me about 6 months to pull together this handful…Well, I say "handful", but I mean "handful" as in a slightly freaky, Anne Boleynesque six-fingered handful. (No offence, any sextedigiters out there!).

The book are now on Flickr.

Vignellican

I've updated my Pelican/Penguin Fickr sets with recent finds. Some good. Some, to be honest, just OK. I nearly didn't bother with this one, from 1964, not long before the designer helped form Unimark. Not a terrible cover, but not a stand-out one either. Which is surprising considering who it's by. Can't say I've ever heard Vignelli's name mentioned in connection with Pelican, wonder if there of others by him.

Harder Better Faster Stronger

No design credit, and some might claim to understand why, but I think there's an unsung hero at work on this sublimely balanced cover from 1976. Take that finger, for example (photo-credited to John Hybert by the way); positioned one third in. Now, you're telling me that's by accident?

Oh, and then there's this (totally unrelated, but equally heroic):

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.

 

 

Better than mine

Damn them! Just look at it. Superb!

Extra special thanks to David for the link.

Pelican Bore

Thought you'd seen the last of my bloody collection? Well, so did I. Then I found even more. They're all (and I mean ALL) on Flickr now. Really.

I think these two are ace, but they also disturb me: The pictorial bits are great, but the titles! Why oh why so much leading on Uses...? And, where have all the rules gone? Why is the title on Sense... centred?

We need answers and we need them now, damn it!

But I doubt that we're going to get them.

All My Pelicans: On Flickr

Well it's only taken me about six months to sign up to Flickr but following Ben's suggestion I've actually gone and done it, and put all my Pelicans on. Enjoy.

All My Pelicans: Part 3

The third and (you may be relieved to know) final instalment of All My Pelicans and it's a big one, the biggest. I made a mistake in Part 1 in that I said (and thought at the time) that that was nearly half of the collection. Then I found this lot, so it was actually less than a third.

There's too many to go into very much detail but, for me at least, the stand out covers are most obviously Romek Marber's cover for Language in the Modern World, Bruce Robertson's design for The Comprehensive School, Lewin Bassingthwaighte's cover for Yoga and the two Fletcher covers: The Theory of Evolution and The Simplicity of Science. The latter design, I feel, could have been better rendered but I really like the idea which reminds me of these.

Other designers include (in no particular order) Hans Unger, Ole Vedel, Alan Spain, Derek Birdsall, Herbert Spencer, Colin Forbes, Barry Trengove, Larry Carter, Frederick Price, Richard Hollis, Gerald Cinamon and Tony Anderson.

So that's that. All my (Marber Grid) Pelicans. Well, except for this one, which I've "filed away" somewhere and can't lay my hand's on right now. If anyone's interested in knowing who designed what, just drop me a comment.

All My Pelicans: Part 2

Following on from the critically aclaimed All My Pelicans: Part 1, here are the rest of them:

By chance rather than design, I actually think Part 2 is even better and not just because it's bigger. If my memory serves me well (and do correct me if you know better) then the first two are by Germano Facetti. The next two are by Fletcher while Electronic Computers is Fletcher/Forbes/Gill.

The next three are Bruce Robertson's, who I've mentioned before. I have a feeling that Islam (exceptional!) and The Queen's Governement are by Lewis Bassingthwaighte.

I remember picking up The Liberal Hour and knowing instinctively it was a Birdsall, as are the previous three. Education looks like it could have been Birdsall but I know it's not (can't remember who though) while The Normal Child (also Birdsallesque) is, as I've mentioned before, Edwin Taylor along with Relativity… and I think John Citizen…

With special thanks to Ben, David and Michael for linking to Part 1.

All My Pelicans: Part 1

Every now and then I mention my loft-based Pelican collection and make an empty promise to get them online. Well here they are, or at least nearly half of them. You may have seen some of them before but I'm trying to get them all together and present them in a consistent way (on a knackered old box).

Stand out covers include Jock Kinnier's startlingly contemporary design for Sex in Society, the brilliant David Gentleman's cover for Aspects of the Novel and Herbert Spencer's cunning solution for A Short History of Religion.

Pelican: The Managerial Revolution

I've got loads of Marber Grid era Pelicans up in the loft, which I really must get down to blog. This Colin Forbes designed Pelican cover is probably my favourite.

I love how that management bloke breaks into the header bar and leans out of the artwork area. Typical Forbes wit.

Regarding Pelicans in general, what makes them so fascinating to me is, a) many covers are designed by designers that went on to greatness, like Forbes and Fletcher, and b) many remain excellent examples of clever, ideas-based graphic design.

The cover below is by Bruce Robertson, who specialised in diagramatic designs and who I've mentioned before. Robertson hid the Marber Grid in the drafting grid image but the masterful stroke is in the way he distorted the type, aligning it to the technical illustrations.

Pelican: Health in childhood etc.

A while back I mentioned my loft-based stash of Pelicans, Penguin's sister non-fiction brand. This is the one that started it.

I've always liked that translucent-coloured-band-overlaying-an-image thing so popular in the 60s and have used the same technique many times. So when I saw this lying in the bargain box of a second hand bookshop in Leicester I snapped it up for just 25p. I was delighted to discover later that it was designed by Derek Birdsall; you might remember my entry for the Penguin Education series for which Birdsall and his Omnific studio designed many brilliant covers.

Once I started looking for more I soon realised that although this one seems to be a one off, there's a huge pile of really interesting Pelican covers (utilising the brilliant Marber Grid) designed by some of the leading lights of the day.

Over the next few months I'll post more, and there's some really fantastic ones, but for now here's just a few. The Divided Self cover is by Martin Bassett and has been re-used over numerous editions, even after the Grid was dropped. The brilliantly executed Africa is by George Daulby, one time stable mate of Birdsall's and who sadly died in 2005. The Stagnant Society is by Germano Facetti, who died earlier this year. What's quite interesting about this latter Pelican is how it was also published as a Penguin Special with a different cover.