Books #5

Perhaps the finest collection of Pelican covers I've found on the web so far is via this link. Arranged according to decade, it is probably the best organised selection too. There are also all the combined Flickr Pelican uploads from across the globe here.

Meantime Olly Moss has done some computer game packaging using the classic Marber grid (below). The full set is viewable on his site (here). However the idea is reminiscent of a number of other projects I had noticed. There was Littlepixel's 'Cover Versions' idea - i.e. classic albums re-imagined as Pelican books - (here), Spacesick's 'I Can Read Movies' series (here) and the Stephane Massa-Bidal's 'Website Collection' posters (here).

Meanwhile, I stumbled on a great blog that is more concerned with the history of books but it is very interesting all the same (here).

Books #1

I've been collecting together some of the books that I like from a design perspective. Amy and Nicola picked up two very nice publications for me while at the market in Toulon and I also got a pile of old Penguins and Pelicans from eBay.

The Penguin By Design book that I treated myself to is also proving rather inspirational. It documents the development of some of those more iconic covers including some real insight regarding the grids and logos that have been used over the years. I'll be posting more on these at some point.

For my own records, I just wanted to note a few links here that I'm sure will prove helpful over coming months. One is Joe Kral's Flickr collection of Penguin books that you will find via this link. There is also another Flickr group for Penguin collectors to upload their favourites via this link. And while eventually they may stray into cliched 'shiny robot' territory, there are some interesting Penguin sci-fi covers via this link.

Looking at other publishers around the globe, A Journey Around My Skull documents some very beautiful books which can be viewed by clicking this link and there is also Martin Klasch here, The Book Cover Archive here, the delightful Grain Edit blog here plus The Graphis Collection which has some astounding retro work here.

I also picked up By Its Cover - a compendium of modern American book design - from the library alongside a very nice Paul Rand book. I'll certainly post more about the latter. Specifically there's his mid-century brochure for an American automobile company that I really, really like.