Romek Marber Research

Key factors: penguin guidelines state that front covers must be simple, Marber kept the colour green to stick to the iconic identity of green crime books associated with penguin. 

To add a modern twist Marber decided to only use one capital letter at the beginning of the book title.  He read each book thoroughly in order to be able to create an image relating to it for the front cover. He used a broken circle to represent mystery. 

Paper back were only ever associated with cheap literature before penguin came about. Their initial ideas were doubted as they were cheap books therefore were seen to make little profit. However a 63,000 book order from woolworths supported the project and in just 10 months 1 million penguin books had been printed.

Time Line

1925-  Marber was born

1942- Saved from being sent to Belzec death camp

1946- Arrived in the UK and was reunited with his father and brother

1950- Attended St Martains

1953- Attended Royal College of Art

1956- Wrote notes on the design of penguin crime book covers

1961- Designed covers for the economist

1961- The art director at penguin commissioned Marber to design covers for Simeon Potter's "Our Language and Language in the Modern World"

1961- Designed Marber grid for Penguin book covers which used two thirds of the book to display an image. Previous proposals to feature an image on the book covers had been rejected until now

1962- Typographica published an article on the history of penguin book covers including the rebranding and the grid designed by Marber's however he wasn't acknowledged.

Designing the Marber Grid

> Considered the fact that the mystery and crime series style had remained the same for 25 years
> Crime series was one of penguin's most popular and recognisable series so he decided to keep the iconic green hue of the covers but chose a fresher shade
> Collated typographic information and colophon together within the top third of the page and left the other two thirds of the cover to be used by the illustration in order to capture the viewers attention
> Eventually Marber's layout became the standard layout for the entire range of penguin books