Penguin Books – Great Ideas
In Britain today, books fight fiercely for shelf space. Full-bleed pictures and huge type are very much the norm, and the idea that a quietly suggestive cover could be heard through the noise seems to be increasingly overlooked. There is a common notion within publishing that academics will buy a book regardless of its cover whereas your average consumer has to be manipulated all the way to the check-out. This is a belief not found commonly in other European countries, where books are consistently packaged with dignity and a respect for the buying public. Austere-looking covers sit happily next to packets of sweets in Italian railway kiosks, whilst the most commercial French novels need carry no more information than a tiny title and author name on a plain white background.
In the UK, this rather utilitarian approach has never been more neatly executed than by Penguin Books in its early years. The founding of the company in 1935 heralded a new, egalitarian era of publishing. For the first time, the ordinary man or woman in the street was able to buy a pocket-sized paperback for the price of a packet of cigarettes. Bookbuying was no longer the preserve of the privileged classes, and books could now sell in huge quantities. Significantly, Penguin achieved this early success without the aid of pictures, shiny foil or marketing slogans, just simple, approachable design.
Over the years, the clarity of Penguin’s purpose had become somewhat compromised by shifting production costs and an increasingly competitive marketplace. And in the field of ‘classic’ literature, in order to maintain their leading position – and to justify their cover price – many of the books had developed into unwieldy tomes loaded with annotation and critical essays which had the effect of narrowing their appeal, resulting in a more academic readership.
In 2004 Simon Winder (a Commissioning Editor for Penguin Press) began to develop an idea for a mini-series – modest in both pagination and price – that might go some way towards shaking off the stigma that had attached itself to the buying of classic literature. These new books would revert to Penguin’s original ‘A’ format* [1] which would give them back aneasy, pamphletty feel and enable a significant price reduction† [2]
The conceit for ‘Great Ideas’ is to take existing Penguin books and chip pieces off. This is partly to try to encourage buyers to go from the chip back to the classic it came from and partly to remain true to the vision of Allen Lane (the founder of Penguin Books), that the publisher existed to educate and to popularise.
While spanning over 2,000 years of philosophy, the first 20-book selection addresses many very contemporary issues, such as globalisation, the environment, religious intolerance, and so on.
So what is the most appropriate aesthetic for philosophy? How do you sum up a text that tells us everything and, yet nothing at all? Perhaps abstract shapes, patterns or evocative landscapes? At once these solutions feel too contrived, too knowing.
As a Junior Designer at Penguin I was given the task of designing the covers. With no existing model to influence proceedings and, therefore no specific sales expectations, my Art Director (Jim Stoddart) deemed it an ideal project for me to cut my teeth on.
Early in the process, illustration was suggested to me as a possible solution, but owing to the subjective nature of the writing it felt like a mistake to dress the covers in imagery that might simply mislead. I imagined that a less literal treatment might better serve the subjects and challenge the reader to project their own meaning onto the covers. If you can activate a reader’s interpretive participation you stand a much better chance of making their experience a meaningful one.
On reading the texts it became apparent that later writers often revered or reviled earlier writers in interesting ways, so there seemed a good reason to make clear visual connections across the series.
I worked up some rough covers to present internally, and although they sported gross historical inaccuracies (blackletter used for Mary Wollstonecraft’s passionate declaration of female independence, for example) the selection was clear enough in its intention: situating the writing in its historical and geographical place through typography.
Type-only covers had become increasingly rare in publishing, but I remember feeling confident that my solution was ‘on brand’, as Penguin have a rich history of distinctive, type-driven jackets. Also, my feeling was that the cumulative effect of the covers would give them sufficient presence when displayed.
An initial concern was sparked by the lack of a publisher’s logo on the covers. To emphasise the period-specific styling I had decided to represent the company and series names with words only, arguing that this treatment – when applied consistently across 20 titles – would then create its own brand identity.
The roughs seemed to have an immediate impact, and this bought me time to go away and research the project in full, with the expectation that I would return with a more complete solution.
During this period I was able to sound out other designers – namely Phil Baines and Catherine Dixon (my college tutors), and one of my old classmates, Alistair Hall. This would ensure two things: that the project would have an in-built level of quality control (typophiles can be very unforgiving if you get it wrong) and that collectively the covers would appear varied and interesting. For example, when Phil got involved I was struck by how confidently he used the cover area, and it is this fluctuation in scale that helped provide pace to the series. Phil’s approach opened my eyes and made me realise that I too could push the idea further than I had originally imagined. The series could have quite easily turned into a straight-laced, visual history of lettering, but we were now finding more and more abstract ways to represent the subject matter. This gave the project personality and even a little humour.
Finally, after eight weeks of intense activity, came the unveiling. I guess I’d begun to feel rather protective of the work since it was the first project I’d been allowed to manage, so I wanted to give it the strongest chance of success. To do this I held back until I was ready to show all 20 covers at the same time, thus making the strongest possible statement.
The temptation of all clients is to make small changes – partly to acquire some ownership of the idea themselves and partly out of wellintentioned attempts to second-guess the market. Happily, in this instance, the Penguin Press Managing Director, Stefan McGrath, stuck his neck out and insisted that every cover be preserved in an unadulterated state. This was a very bold decision, and I noticed more than a few worried looks* [3], but he simply felt that the process of making changes – once begun – would never end and that the integrity of the project would be compromised.
With approval won, the next step was to proof the covers† [4]. Of course we did not have an unlimited budget, and we had to monitor quite closely what was spent. Once the economical decision was made to use only two colours (black, and red, which is the traditional second printing colour), it meant that more elaborate finishes could be afforded. The debossing of type tips a nod to letterpress printing (albeit in a rather amplified way) while the choice of an uncoated‡ [5], off-white stock reinforces the link with traditional printing.
In book publishing, it can be a contentious decision to leave a cover uncoated, as it tends to get rather dirty, but I never saw this as a problem since the books would only acquire a stronger sense of erudition the more beaten up they became. Also, a thick, fibrous cover board helps to emphasise the effects of debossing. These days, the Sales team normally show what’s new at Penguin on their laptops. The trouble is, in PowerPoint you gain no sense of a cover’s tactile qualities.
In one instance, a Penguin salesman (Andy Taylor) pretended that his computer was broken in order to get the proofs into the hands of his customers, and he insists that this made all the difference.
Great Ideas were launched on 2 September 2004, and sales currently stand at three million copies worldwide. Second and third series have since been commissioned – in blue and green respectively – and things may not end there.
The series’ success should be attributed to many different factors: Simon’s original idea was a great one, implying that world-changing thought and writing equates to Penguin, while the finished books reflected Allen Lane’s philosophy that good design should cost no more than bad; but above all the publisher displayed an unfaltering level of confidence in the project, ensuring that its message remained clear and its purpose true.
[1] * There are two standard book
sizes within the paperback industry:
A format (181 × 111 mm), the original Penguin size; and B format (198 × 129 mm), used widely since the mid-1980s, sparking a significant rise in the price of paperback books.
[2] † Individual copies were priced at £3.99.
[3] * Most major publishing houses stage weekly jacket meetings, attended by representatives of Editorial, Marketing, Publicity and Sales departments.
[4] † Proofed covers are important aids to the Sales team, as the trade will often only buy into a title if they believe its cover will sell it.
[5] ‡ Free from protective, ultraviolet laminates.
