Penguin Classics

Penguin Books paid particular attention to the design of its books, recruiting German typographer Jan Tschichold in 1947. The early minimalist designs were modernised by Italian art director Germano Facetti, who joined Penguin in 1961. In 2019, Jim Stoddart redesigned the cover. The Mrs Eaves of the old lettering was swapped for an unitalicized sans-serif font. The signature orange of the author name was replaced with white for a more uniform look. All Penguin Classics printed after 2019 use this design. ==Series==

Within the broader category of Classics, Penguin has issued specialized series with their own designs. These include: • Penguin Nature Classics, issued from 1987 onwards, with authors such as Peter Matthiessen, Mary Austin, Henry David Thoreau, and John Muir. • Penguin Modern Classics, issued from 1961 onwards, with authors such as Truman Capote, James Joyce, George Orwell, Vladimir Nabokov, and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Some titles come with critical apparatus. The series has gone through a number of redesigns, the most recent being in June 2017: see here here, and here. • The series was renamed Penguin 20th Century Classics in May 1989, but reverted to its old name in February 2000. 20th Century Classics feature full-page front cover art, with a light blue-green/eau de nil rear cover and spine. • Penguin Enriched Classics, issued, such as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Pride and Prejudice, The Scarlet Letter, and A Tale of Two Cities • Penguin Popular Classics, issued in 1994, are paperback editions of texts under the Classics imprints. They were a response to Wordsworth Classics, a series of very cheap reprints which imitated Penguin in using black as its signature color. • Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, issued from 1997 onward, are paperback editions of texts with matte paper covers, French flaps, deckled page edges and cover art often illustrated by renowned comic artists. • Penguin Designer Classics, issued in 2007, is a set of five limited-edition books, with covers created by fashion designers to commemorate the series' 60th Anniversary • Penguin Mini Modern Classics, issued in 2011, is an assortment of fifty pocket-sized books from fifty different authors such as Franz Kafka, Italo Calvino, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf and Stefan Zweig. It has been released to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Penguin Modern Classics. It is currently out of print. • Penguin Little Black Classics, issued in 2015 a series of pocket-sized classics introduced to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Penguin Books. • Pocket Penguins, issued in 2016. The series echoes the style of the original Penguin Books, with smaller A-format size, and tri-band design. • The first 20 books were released in May 2016, and described by publishing director Simon Winder as "a mix of the famous and the unjustly overlooked". • Penguin Clothbound Classics, begun in 2008, issues classics in hardbound form wrapped in Brillianta (rayon) cloth, with an emphasis on aesthetics and collectability, designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith. Despite being hardbound, YouTubers have complained online about durability and fading covers, although since 2021, with The Little Prince, a more durable cover design has been used. The series has also sparked spinoff ones, those being the clothbound poetry, clothbound philosophy, and the (smaller format) little clothbounds. • Penguin Crime & Espionage, issued in 2023. An initial series of 10 paperback books ==Bibliography==

In 2007, Penguin Classics released a set of five books limited to 1,000 copies each, known as the Designer Classics. Each book was specially designed to celebrate Penguin Classics' Diamond Anniversary: • The cover for Crime and Punishment was created by graphic designers Stephen Sorrell and Damon Murray of Fuel, who used Cyrillic and English type. Stephen explains: "This visual device echoes the mind games in the head of Raskolnikov as he battles with his voice of conscience. We want the design to form the shape and feel of the book as a whole not just its cover." They have screen printed the cover on the same brown craft paper used for the text. The book has a Perspex slipcase. • The Idiot was designed by industrial designer Ron Arad and has no cover, so the reader will pick it up and read the author's first words. It is stripped back to show the glue and thread in the spine, which is visible through an acrylic slipcase (with a lid) with a Fresnel lens, so the text appears to move as the lid is removed. Arad explains: "By not wanting to have a cover, it ended with the book becoming an amazing object that is alive, but which maintains its transparency. It became a glorious box with a book inside—almost like a monument." • The cover for ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' was created by fashion designer Paul Smith. • The cover for Madame Bovary was designed by fashion designer Manolo Blahnik. The jacket features Blahnik's original painting of Emma with her lover, and the book is protected by a Perspex slipcase. He said: "I wanted to come up with something light, sensual... something frivolous, because this is a novel about the dangers of frivolity. And I wanted something sexy too, cheeky. I usually focus on one part of the foot—the shoe. For this project, I had to consider a whole scene, there had to be a context, which is new for me. But I managed to sneak in a pair of shoes anyway. She wore good shoes." • The cover for Tender Is the Night was designed by English filmmaker, photographer, and visual artist Sam Taylor-Wood, who used an ethereal black-and-white photograph printed onto tracing paper. An elegant, barefoot young man stands with his hands in his pocket, perfectly summing up the elegance and fragility of Nicole and Dick Diver's world. The book is wrapped in a cloth hardcover and has a Perspex slipcase. == In the public eye ==

In 2013, Penguin Classics published Morrissey's Autobiography. Concerns arose about the imprint's publishing a book too recently published to be an acknowledged classic, that such a book diluted the brand. Penguin argued that the autobiography was "a classic in the making". The Independents Boyd Tonkin wrote: "The droning narcissism of the [book] may harm [Morrissey's] name a little. It ruins that of his publisher... Morrissey will survive his unearned elevation. I doubt that the reputation of Penguin Classics will." Penguin Classics sold well during the 2019-2021 coronavirus pandemic when citizens in many countries, forced into lockdown as a preventive measure, found solace in books. ==See also==