typography with limited color. Cohen wrote that this “simple and often
painfully boring design” had one virtue: “Everyone who can see and read
knows that two swathes of blue bisected by a white area containing the title
and author means Penguin.” In a market where all publishers hawk books
“with clamor and stridency, the soft-sell conservatism of Penguin Books
communicates an impression of solidity, impassableness, and confidence.”
Yet for his own books, Cohen avoided what he called Penguin’s “monolithic
conservatism” as well as the greater tendency for repetitive fashion. As
much as he objected to Penguin’s “stoic self-discipline,” he also refused to
succumb to “sleek photographs which look as though they were cut out of
terribly chic New Yorkeradvertisements, woodcuts which become so
important in the jacket that typography becomes an afterthought, and
clichés which go on endlessly.” Cohen’s vision of the quality paperback
relied strongly on an exclusive look defined by modernist graphic design.
Alvin Lustig, who in the late 1940 s introduced surreal
photomontage and abstract glyphs (influenced by Paul Klee and Miró) to
New Directions Books’ hardcover jackets, switched over to using eclectic
nineteenth-century wood and metal typography for Meridian and Noonday
paperback covers. Akin to earlier typography by Lester Beall, Lustig’s book
covers’ typography were a mix of slab serifs and railroad gothics, sometimes
paired with antique engraver’s scripts and often set against unusual flat
color backgrounds, including rich purples, oranges, and maroons, some
with contrasting bars and stripes.
Simplicity was a virtue, since these books had to withstand strong
visual competition in bookstores from bestseller book jackets, children’s
books, and in some cases record album covers and greeting cards. Rather
than try to out-shout the more flamboyant designs, Lustig’s goal, he
explained in a collection of unpublished notes, “was to create the effect of a
special object which is only incidentally a book.” The method of display
required viewing all the books together face-out on shelves and “would be
very important in creating the proper isolation and emphasis for the books.”
He further noted that the titles were purposely kept small rather than try to
“compete with the large lettering of hardcover book jackets and thus lose
their sense of quality.” But most important in Lustig’s overall plan, “The
designs, although non-representational, would have an emblematic character
and would possess overtones of a traditional sense of order. They would
strive for freshness and a rather unclassifiable quality rather than try to seem
either modern or traditional in the usual sense of those words.”
For graphic designers of the 1950 s and 1960 s, quality paperbacks
were what CD packages are today—wellsprings of a certain kind of design
innovation that was perhaps best characterized by a statement made at the
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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