Wednesday 28 July 2010

particularly pretty penguins pt. 1


Ever since I can remember starting to appreciate book covers Penguin has been one of my absolute favorites. Their amazing sense of style is simply immaculate, and I cannot get enough of it. It could in fact be that they're partly responsible for me wanting to work in publishing in the first place, cos I so wanted to be a part of creating something desirable from the outside in. Today I discovered this great batch of special edition classics they've published in association with (RED), where 50% of the profits will go towards helping eliminate AIDS in Africa. A very good thing indeed, and I'm tempted to ordering the lot to be honest, and hang them on the wall cos they are so incredibly beautiful! Seriously, breathtaking! Being a big fan of red and black and white is of course one of the reasons I like them so much, but add the calligraphy and unusual fonts and handwriting and letter illustration to that, and I'm one happy girl just looking at them, again and again and again. Of course the titles are not too bad either, but I've already got most of them in other editions, so if I was to get any of these I guess I'd donate the old ones for charity first. Or keep them in case I want to re-read them one day, and I've nailed the new ones to the wall as art!

































Last year I got three Penguin book cover design books, and I love just flickering through them for inspiration, there's so much to choose from. There's the odd not so great cover in there too, which is almost a relief, cos pure perfection is hard to handle in my book. No pun intended. I also think that the Penguin logo is probably the best logo in the world. In the future, if I should move somewhere else and not work for Leopard anymore, and I'm not moving to San Fransisco to work at McSweeney's, getting a job at Penguin would rate pretty high for sure. Oh, the dreams, the dreams. Where would we be without them? Well, if I had followed the advice of the students counsler in my high school, I'd be working in the steel factory in Oxelösund right now. Do I have to add I'm happy I don't?

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