Publishers should have big anniversaries more often, because it makes them release glorious retrospectives of their cover designs. Penguin by Design, which has been out for a few years, details the history of the company and those familiar orange spines, while the recently released Penguin 75 picks up where it left off, displaying the publisher’s recent design innovations, along with insightful and occasionally hilarious commentary by designers and authors. See a sampling here.
Over in the U.K., Faber & Faber is celebrating as well with Eighty Years of Cover Design. It’s not yet available in the U.S. (boo!), but you can tease yourself with this slideshow, or read about the history of book covers, which isn’t as obvious a story as you might think. Man. We know we’re not supposed to judge books by their covers, but with designs like these, sometimes it’s impossible not to be seduced.
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