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# Cover story
- URL: https://www.lorcandempsey.net/cover-story/
- Published: 2005-05-31T14:25:31.000Z
- Updated: 2005-05-31T14:25:31.000Z
- Author: Lorcan Dempsey
- Tags: Books, UX

[![topnav_penguinlogo.gif](https://www.lorcandempsey.net/content/images/wordpress/lorcan/topnav_penguinlogo-thumb.gif)](https://www.penguin.co.uk/?ref=lorcandempsey.net)Penguin book covers are iconic. There is a nice article by Peter Campbell on the design of Penguin books in the [London Review of Books](https://www.lrb.co.uk/?ref=lorcandempsey.net). This is on the occasion of a forthcoming exhibition at the V&A \[[V&A press release in Word](https://www.vam.ac.uk/files/Seventy%20Years%20of%20Penguin%20Design%20press%20release.doc?ref=lorcandempsey.net)\]. 

> Market forces made the covers both livelier and more intrusive: they became advertisements. Penguin Classics (modern and ancient), where the Penguin name still means something, has kept a series style. Some of these covers are masterpieces of picture research. In 1984 the Pelican imprint was discontinued. The disappearance of the visual puns and graphic conceits which had given a modern gloss to worthy, often didactic non-fiction took Penguin one more step away from the BBC-like status it had once had. The illustrations in Baines’s book prove how good, or at least how memorable, the designs were. Most middle-aged readers will recognise a remarkable number of them as books they knew, or books they have on their shelves, mellowing into crisp, brown-edged age. \[[LRB | Peter Campbell : At the V&A](https://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n11/camp01%5F.html?ref=lorcandempsey.net)\]