Wednesday, July 14

Germano Facetti: Penguin Books




When PENGUIN was founded in 1935 with the radical concept of producing inexpensive paperback editions of high quality books, it adopted an equally progressive approach to typography and cover design. Under Jan Tschichold in the 1940s and Germano Facetti in the 1960s, Penguin became an exemplar of book design.


By far my favourite, Facetti's direction delivered works with a punch that provided Penguin with an identity that was unique and consistent but also alowed each piece of literature to maintain its own identity. Most notable of all, Facetti introduced the black series colour, with restrained but modern sans serif capitals, for the translations from Greek and Latin for which Penguin was well known. Despite initial reservations the black looked so distinguished and gained such a reputation that its use was later extended to English literature. It is now the livery of the most comprehensive literary library in print from any publisher.