The History of Penguin Books - 13.10.22
In 1934, a young publisher by the name of Allen Lane realised that some of the books at a station bookstall in Exeter St Davids were not very good in quality and were regularly overpriced.
His approach to publishing soon became widely renowned after a year of setting up his business, which was known for making good quality books whilst still being able to be priced competitively cheaper than other publishers during this time.
In 1925, Random House founders Bennet Cerf and Donald S. Klopfer purchased The Modern Library, which was another publisher that was in competition with Penguin Books, but was based overseas. After two years, the young founders wanted to broaden Random House’s publishing activities and in 1934, they have managed to publish the first authorised edition of James Joyce's novel Ulysses.
Fast forward to 2013, both Random House and Penguin Books came together to form a worldwide publishing company that can be seen across the world.
Company history (2022)
By finding out the history of Penguin Books, the publisher wants something that can be reproducible, whilst still being able to be seen as good quality. I would need to balance this out whilst having my own twist on the book cover.
I have also searched the different books that are needed to design book covers in the next blog posts. The unfortunate thing about this year is that Penguin Books will not be hosting an event to showcase the design work of other graphic designers. This was so that Penguin Books can make sure that the competition can be overlooked and that marking criteria are fully finalised for next year's competition.
The books for this unit will be chosen by the lecturers of the unit and were given to us during the lesson. As I have said before, this is written down in other blog posts.