Study Task 8 - Penguin book covers research and colours

Penguin Publishing was created in 1935. They were initially always paperbacks as they wanted to cut costs to allow the books to be cheaper but still wanted to invest in quality for the consumers. Their design was really simplistic which avoided costs in illustrations and made it very easy for consumers to find what book they wanted as it was colour coded and clearly identifiable, making it very successful. The books would be a two block colours with a band of white in the centre - horizontal grid quite similar to the modular grid as the text initially used to follow this horizontal band of white.

The title and author were printed along this band in Gill Sans and this is because it was created for the purpose of being a display typeface that would be used for posters and advertisements therefore it has the ability to be easily legible and also attractive.

Penguin books were also simplified by their colour coding system as each colour represented a genre.

• orange and white for general fiction 
• green and white for crime fiction
• cerise and white for travel and adventure
• dark blue and white for biographies
• yellow and white for miscellaneous
• red and white for drama
• purple and white for essays
• grey and white for world affairs