Designing classics

A couple of months ago, I interviewed Penguin designer Coralie Bickford-Smith in a video about her covers for the Gothic horror series. This last week we had another conversation, this time by email. I’d send her an image file with a question at the top, and then she’d fill the rest of the picture with anything she wanted and send it back, and then I’d send her another one.

This is the conversation, and that’s me in the Helvetica:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hardback classics are exclusively available at Waterstone’s and through the Waterstone’s website. Here’s the full list, with a link to an image of each book:

Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
Tess of the d’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

Coralie is too modest to say so, but she also just won an award for best ‘Brand or Series Identity’ at the British Book Design and Production Awards. She won for the Classic Boys’ Adventures series, which you can buy as a complete set with an exclusive poster right here. (Is this not the greatest cover ever?)

And she designed this luxurious three-volume giftset of our new translation of The Arabian Nights (published at the end of the month), which are perhaps the most handsome books I have ever touched:

(Note for possible future misery memoir: Coralie designs books so nice that touching them makes me feel inferior.)

I suppose what I am getting at is that if you were to follow Coralie around and buy every book she designed, you would have a very beautiful library. No doubt her ability to make books so desirable will turn her into a figure of hate during this economic downturn, as she renders people unable to resist buying elegant hardback books, when they should really be eating instead. I am hungry, Coralie! Please stop this! My infant child needs shoes! Coralie, I ate his shoes!

Still, good work.

Alan
Copywriter

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Enter the School of Life

The School of Life is a little shop with big ambitions. Tucked away on Marchmont Street and on the cusp of Bloomsbury this cultural apothecary specialises in providing its patrons with ideas to live by. Be they guided holidays to discover the splendour of the everyday, meals with a menu of conversation topics, secular sermons from cultural mavericks, a course from the curriculum of play, family, work, politics and love, or just answers to those really big questions from one of the many experts on hand, this remarkable little place is something of a revelation.

And, there are also books. This is one of the reasons I popped in on a sunny Tuesday morning for a chat and a cup of Earl Gray with the School’s director, Sophie Howarth. It is quite refreshing to browse by need rather than genre, so it’s something from the shelf “for those whose jobs are too small for their spirits” (not me then) or perhaps something “for those who have fallen profoundly and unexpectedly in love” (more like it).

When I think back on my school days, which even at the tender age of twenty-seven seem a depressingly long time ago, I have a few enduring memories. From primary school it was my first taste of gambling: beating the headmaster at chess and winning a King Size Mars Bar for my troubles. At Middle School it was the shoddy application of Tipp-Ex over every single class photo after the brazen two fingers of my friend were noticed only when it was too late. Or, finally, a frankly unbelievable “talent show” entry that would have made Britney blush.

Despite these, and the obvious perks of early school life you are never really learning a love of wisdom, but rather training yourself to remember the specific answers to a set of clearly defined questions. Even the boom in night schools and adult learning seem to fill voids rather than broaden minds. So it’s rather nice that Sophie and her team have started this unusual and interesting venture and next time you’re walking around Russell Square, why don’t you pop in and see what they prescribe.

Matt Clacher
Literary Marketing Executive

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Penguin Sets

I'm a bit of a completist. Once I find something I like, I want more. For a time I want it all (usually until something else captures my attention – ooh puppies).

When I was younger I spent years collecting the novels of Michael Moorcock and Philip K Dick, which were fitfully in print. I'd scour secondhand bookshops for battered old editions, not because I was a cheapskate (I mean obviously I was: I was a kid and had to spend my pocket money wisely) but because secondhand were the only available editions. Any flea market was an opportunity to hunt out those rare and much-sought after titles I'd still to find. It took me years and even trips to America (post-pocket money, I should add) to accumulate a near-complete collection of the works of authors I had fallen in love with as a teenager.

This could never happen now. The Internet has changed everything. If I want something I can get hold of it in just a few clicks. Amazon, ABE books, ebay. It will be delivered to my desk at work.

Of course, the old way of going about things means that I've now got a collection of mismatched books of mixed formats and cover designs, with prices that can range from 20 pence to £20, and which are printed on paper that varies in shades from white to brown, or from yellow to mildewy. This never particularly bothered me. I mean it's the words that matter. As long as you can read the book (and in most instances I'm not going to be re-reading it) who cares? This is what I thought for a long while.

Then I started working in publishing. And that's when I got involved in the process. And started to work on books and authors that I really, really like. Authors like Arthur Conan Doyle and Raymond Chandler. And we'd schedule books and commission some wonderful artist to do the covers, and I'd scratch my head and write some appropriate copy that would grab the first-time reader.

And suddenly we'd have these wonderful sets of books. Sherlock Holmes. Philip Marlowe. Boys' classic adventure stories. Classic tales of the gothic and supernatural. George Orwell's fables. Beautifully designed complete sets. Books you'd buy for yourself if you didn't already have them (but you might anyway since your mildewy editions probably aren't hygienic enough to be handed down to the next generation). But, more importantly perhaps, books you'd want to pass on to people. To those who've yet to discover the magic and discover extraordinary new places of the imagination.

To wander the darkened, fog-enshrouded alleys of Victorian London because the game was afoot. To know what it was like to have a beautiful woman point a gun at you, and mean it. To listen to the night wind rattling your window and know that death is trying to get in. To be hounded across moor and mountain for a crime you never committed without a friend to turn to in your hour of need.

To that end Penguin have put together thirteen sets for Christmas. Yes, lucky thirteen.

One set is our Shepard Fairey/George Orwell twin poster and book set (this is strictly limited edition: two hundred sets of numbered and signed posters) for just £100. Four sets (Marlowe, Holmes, Adventure Classics, Gothic Classics) come with free posters and are heavily discounted. We also have discounted complete sets of Nick Hornby's, Jane Austen's and Charles Dickens' novels. The complete science fiction of HG Wells. James Bond in Modern Classic and Roald Dahl in Puffin. Lastly, we have a sumptuous new translation of The Arabian Nights in three-volume slip-cased hardback as well as Bill Amberg's leather-bound luxury classics.

Here's your chance. They're all available now – but they're limited and it's first come, first served.

So pick up these wonderful sets for yourself and get re-reading. Or get them for a friend or loved one.

Pass on a little bit lot of magic.

Colin Brush
Senior Copywriter

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Limited Edition Shepard Fairey Prints

As we previously announced on this blog, we have some pretty apt and snazzy new cover art for George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm and I am delighted to announce that Shepard has taken time out from his busy schedule of shows in Washington D.C, as well as his campaigning for Obama, to produce, sign and number 200 prints of each of these covers.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should point out that I’m a big fan of Shepard Fairey. My older brother Simon introduced me to his work when he bought me the “Greetings from Iraq” print for my birthday a couple of years ago. This marked an ironic and un-art-related personal turning point in the nature of our brotherhood, as for years when we were growing up he hoarded all his cool stuff away and would never let me in on his slightly more grown up world of 18-certificate films and explicit lyrics cassette tapes (I’ll never forget the coup of sneaking into his room and secretly recording his Public Enemy albums).

Anyway, digressions aside, his Nighteeneightyfouria exhibition at Stolen Space last year was fantastic and among all the great works on display, I’d have to say this little number was my personal favourite.

So, after months of back and forth, the prints have finally arrived, and they look great. They will be available exclusively from the Penguin website; you will not find them for sale anywhere else (at least not yet) because there are only 200 sets in existence.

To get hold of yours, before John Hamilton and his Art Department snaffle them all up, you’ll need to check back here next week for more information.

** Update: available now, here **

Matt Clacher
Literary Marketing Executive

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Five in mind part 16: where are the books?

I've been working at Penguin for over ten years and an enduring pleasure is the quantity and quality of free books that are liberally dispersed among staff. For the first three years of my employ there was barely a day when I didn't leave with a manuscript, a proof or a glossy finished text in my bulging bag. 7 years, a course of physiotherapy and three bags later I am a little less greedy than I once was, but my reading habits have also changed pretty dramatically in that time. I don't yet spend a lot of time with an ebook reader but thanks to the combination of google reader and my iPod Touch I am rarely far away from a favourite writer – a blog writer that is. So for this five in mind I'm going to eschew the world of print and rummage through my RSS feeds to pick out five blogs that I always look forward to seeing updated.

Kottke.org – Jason Kottke is one of the proto-bloggers – he began blogging over 10 years ago. Covering 'liberal arts 2.0' Jason barely comments on the items he finds from across the internet, but his interests range across technology, typography, design and recently (as with all American blogs!) politics. Basically, if you haven't got the time or energy to spend your days searching for smart, literate, good-looking things on the internet, you could do a lot worse than let Jason Kottke do it for you.

A relatively new and nerdy interest of mine is data-visualization and Flowing Data is the best blog I've found for indulging this interest. I'm not a designer, but since my work involves thinking about how we might present complex ideas and stories in digital formats I am finding the work of designers such as Edward Tufte and Jonathan Harris really inspiring. Also, some of this stuff is really beautiful to look at. In a nerdy way.

A relative newcomer to the world of bookblogging this one, but maybe the best publishing blog out there at the moment. The 26th Story is the blog of HarperStudio, an imprint of HarperCollins in the US which is doing some interesting things with their publishing business model. Their blog clearly shows that they understand the conversational tone of 'web2.0' and they smartly write about many of the issues that concern forward-thinking publishing folk the world over.

At the intersection of design, architecture and technology resides bldgblog where I find some of the best 
photography and most thought-provoking articles on the internet. If
you are interested in cities or in buildings and what they might look
like in the future this is one for you. And while it has absolutely
nothing to do with books or publishing, there is a bldgblog book coming
out next year and I can't wait.

Basically, how could I resist a blog called Telstar Logistics with a logo like this and 'Land Air Sea Space' as its slogan? I couldn't and in the past few months I've been treated to posts on air-traffic routes in the San Francisco Bay area, Automated Tokyo bicycle garages and the basic taxonomy of American Houseboat design. Land, Air, Sea and Space indeed.

The great thing about a blog reading list is that there is no financial investment in them at all, just time. So if I stop being fascinated by data visualization and start obsessing about Hello Kitty, to pick an example completely at random, I can just delete my current reading list and find a whole new one. Who knows what my RSS reader will look like 6 months from now? Exciting, isn't it?

If you've got a favourite blog that you want to share, drop us a note in the comments below.

Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher

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A Penguin exchange student speaks

As someone who has not yet reached the dizzy heights of management, I am not the kind of person to go on a business trip – to New Cross, let alone NEW YORK. Every year Penguin send a few people from various parts of the UK office to visit Penguin US – see how our colleagues over there work, how the office differs, what’s happening in publishing on the other side of the pond. It was with both joy (flying somewhere and not having to fly with Ryanair, staying in a hotel with actual hotel breakfast) and fear (having to behave like a professional adult) that I embarked on my trip. After a very turbulent flight (I was so tense the lady next to me exclaimed ‘well I can see that no one would want to fly with you!’) I checked into our hotel for the week – very trendy, need to be a contortionist to move around the bedrooms. The next day the six of us on the programme – ‘the programme’ came to feel like some kind of reality TV show, where we might suddenly get booted off at any minute – headed into the Penguin US HQ like it was our first day of school.

After repeatedly telling myself ‘I am not the work experience person, I am not the work experience person’ I settled into the week, which mostly consisted of meetings with various people from different parts of the business. I did a lot of talking during that time, and found out the office was far more different than I thought it would be. I found myself saying ‘we do it like this’ an awful lot of the time, without wanting to suggest that the way ‘we’ do it is better than the way ‘you’ do it.

The most palpable difference is the office itself. I have become so used to our open-plan layout, where everyone from the work experience person to the Chief Executive sit at desks, with no offices in sight. The result is a buzzy, newsroom feel to the office from which I am constantly picking up bits of information to add to the ‘I don’t know how I know that but I do’ part of my brain. In Penguin US, offices are still firmly in place. It felt like there was so much room! I enjoyed comparing offices – some really are homes from home and I could see how if I had that space I would no doubt cherish it, as well the peace and quiet that environment brings – but what I missed from the UK office was the general noise of everyone being together.

What also struck me during the week was the difference in the way of working within imprints. There are 33 imprints as part of Penguin US (apologies in advance if I have counted wrong) – many more than in the UK. In the UK I think all the imprints have their own identity, for sure, but my impression was that the imprints over there operate almost as separate companies. And on the whole, different imprints look after the hardbacks and paperbacks. As far as paperback reinvention goes, this can only be a good thing. If a title doesn’t do as well in hardback as the publisher would have liked, a completely fresh team can look at the book objectively and change the pitch for the paperback. The hard thing would be letting go of those authors you really love working with – I feel like I’d be still hanging around mine like a jealous ex-girlfriend.

So after meetings all week, visits to book shops (Barnes & Noble on Union Square is simply amazing – why why why are English and American book jackets so different?), presentations on ebooks (I finally got to hold a Kindle, I think I need one), learning about Amazon.com (they’ve had a fabulous competition to find new writers over there with the winner and others being published by Penguin US) and hearing of sales figures we can only dream of (grumblings of only selling fifty thousand hardbacks of certain books had me laughing hysterically in the corner in disbelief), it was time to return.

But not before Hallowe’en.




Hallowe’en was definitely one of the highlights of the week. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Bearing in mind I am a complete fancy dress scrooge, who would do anything to avoid dressing up for any occasion (I’m really fun), I was beyond impressed with the effort everyone made. The office completely transforms and you barely recognise anyone who works there. Highlights were Candyland, anything to do with Sarah Palin, trash prom, 50s diner…with prizes for best costumes, best decorated department, best newcomer, you name it. My mission, as given to me by my host marketing department: bring Hallowe’en mania to Penguin UK.

I’m just not sure we have it in us…

Jennifer Doyle
Marketing Executive

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