Finding it a little hard to get to the bookstore lately, so I turn once again to the incredible Seven Hundred Penguins. Predictably, it didn't take long to find an example of what has made Penguin such a great publisher over the years.
Published in 1964, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Atomic Radiation is a fantastic example of how two colors and geometry can jump out and kick your photo-illustrated cover's butt.
(And if anyone knows more about Penguin's "Intelligent Woman's Guide" series, please share with the rest of us. I found only one other reference to it: George Bernard Shaw's The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism.)
We did a whole feature on these great looking books not too long ago:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.yuppiepunk.org/2006/10/cheap-books-killer-looks.html
Penguin has great designers!
Love this site. Thanks!
While I do like these from a nostalgic perspective and really enjoy Helen Yentus' geometric explorations for the Camus covers as of recent, I do feel that this was sort of a trend and modernist exploration of graphic design. Lets see how abstract and simple we can make the covers graphic message. But on a progressive note, these kind of design could have been coupled with just about any title and still work in the same way.
ReplyDeleteI do see the atomic burst or energy aspect of this, but it still does not convince me as a superior solution to photo-based covers. At least not in this particular case... for me.
Kind of reminds me of Kidds work for Vertical press for the Ring series...
ReplyDeleteI wonder where he got inspired for those???
As I understand it, "The Intelligent Womean's Guide..." was not a series. Shaw wrote his book in 1928, and I assume this (nice-looking) book was playing off that title.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete