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Product Description
Product Description
A collection of Penguin covers from Britain and around the world, Seven Hundred Penguins is a celebration of jackets that remain visually distinctive and addictive to us today, from the beautiful to the garish, design classics to design oddities. A full-colour, sensuous delight, with one jacket on every page, the featured jackets represent the personal favourites of Penguin staff from offices all over the world, and run from Penguin's birth in 1935 to the end of the twentieth century.
Throughout there are jackets that bring back a flood of memories of the first time a book was read; there is beautiful typography from Jan Tschicold; arresting illustrations; visual witticisms from Derek Birdsall; countless mutations of the much-loved Penguin grid. There are also, with no formula at all, jackets that just make sense.
Featuring old favourites and plenty of surprises, 700 Penguins is a unique and inspiring collection of the most impactful and well-loved Penguin covers of the twentieth century.
About the Author
Penguin Press was formed in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane, then-editorial director of The Bodley Head. It was the first company to bring good-quality, contemporary literature to readers at an affordable price. In 1946, it launched the Penguin Classics series, itself now a classic. Penguin publishes books under a variety of imprints including Puffin, DK, Hamish Hamilton, Viking, Rough Guides and Ladybird. Now more than seventy years old, Penguin is the home of reading.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
From an artist's point of view this book is fantastic - beautiful, large (ish) clear pictures and just one on each page. I have the other penguin covers book, which I love too, but I prefer the layout in this one.
Basically it is chunky and I don't know if the books are in any sort of order - there aren't any details of the book on the page other than what is already on the cover, and I can see why this may annoy some people. To me it really doesn't matter because I just love looking at the design of the covers and the pictures are great! Definately buy this book if you love modern design! FANTASTIC!
Basically it is chunky and I don't know if the books are in any sort of order - there aren't any details of the book on the page other than what is already on the cover, and I can see why this may annoy some people. To me it really doesn't matter because I just love looking at the design of the covers and the pictures are great! Definately buy this book if you love modern design! FANTASTIC!
28 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you have the previous excellent cover book Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005, you might wonder if a book of seven hundred covers is really needed. From my point of view probably not mainly because the editorial idea for this thick, chunky book is rather badly thought out.
The seven hundred covers (reduced to ninety percent of their original size)
are presented one to a page at random with only twelve pre-1950. I would have thought that an historical sequence would have been more interesting and then possibly breaking that down to fiction or non-fiction. Obviously fiction covers allow for much more visual creativity and to see how graphic styles have changed over the years would be interesting.
Another annoyance I found was that none of the covers have captions on the same page. It really is a nonsense to have to keep turning to the fourteen pages at the back of the book just to find who the artist or photographer was or the date of publication. Incidentally the index is not very readable being set in fairly small serif type without the use of bold for the page number.
I was surprised that so many of the covers show signs of wear or fading. Maybe copies were taken from the archive shelves and just photocopied, it certainly looks that way. Maybe a drop shadow on two sides would have helped.
Penguin Books are rightly famous for taking trouble over the whole package: the choice of authors, subjects, design of text pages and covers but I thought 'Seven Hundred Penguins' suggests a rather slapdash quickie title that doesn't deliver. It could have looked so good!
***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.
The seven hundred covers (reduced to ninety percent of their original size)
are presented one to a page at random with only twelve pre-1950. I would have thought that an historical sequence would have been more interesting and then possibly breaking that down to fiction or non-fiction. Obviously fiction covers allow for much more visual creativity and to see how graphic styles have changed over the years would be interesting.
Another annoyance I found was that none of the covers have captions on the same page. It really is a nonsense to have to keep turning to the fourteen pages at the back of the book just to find who the artist or photographer was or the date of publication. Incidentally the index is not very readable being set in fairly small serif type without the use of bold for the page number.
I was surprised that so many of the covers show signs of wear or fading. Maybe copies were taken from the archive shelves and just photocopied, it certainly looks that way. Maybe a drop shadow on two sides would have helped.
Penguin Books are rightly famous for taking trouble over the whole package: the choice of authors, subjects, design of text pages and covers but I thought 'Seven Hundred Penguins' suggests a rather slapdash quickie title that doesn't deliver. It could have looked so good!
***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have long held a passion for Penguin books and admit to being somewhat beguiled by their cover designs. I have mugs, tea towels, the works so have fallen for the look hook, line and sinker. That is probably why I love this book so much. I love flicking through for the images, and just as much to enjoy the obsure and peculiar book titles that frequently crop up. There is something about books with stark titles such as 'Homosexuality' or 'Sexual Deviation' or 'The Stagnant Society' that speaks of yester year. The title and cover designs alone evoke a bygone era where things seemed a little more simple.
I totally take on board the criticisms by another reviewer re. lack of references to cover artists etc. throughout the text. If you want an in depth book or are particuarly interested in which artists contributed which covers then 'Penguin By Design' bu Phil Baines is probably a much better bet. If, like me, you just love flicking through random covers and enjoying the wonderful images then 700 one to a page cover reproductions is about as good as it gets.
I totally take on board the criticisms by another reviewer re. lack of references to cover artists etc. throughout the text. If you want an in depth book or are particuarly interested in which artists contributed which covers then 'Penguin By Design' bu Phil Baines is probably a much better bet. If, like me, you just love flicking through random covers and enjoying the wonderful images then 700 one to a page cover reproductions is about as good as it gets.
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