JKR

Effective design does not have to be complicated. It can just be a matter of having a good eye for talent and employing it. Penguin are masters of this. Another lovely set of books designed by Coralie Bickford Smith now join the Penguin bookshelf, already groaning with many other fine examples. They beautiful demonstrate the use of pattern as design and work brilliantly as a set.

Bickford-Smith is obviously something of an expert in pattern design, and her work on a set of F. Scott Fitzgerald titles show how brilliant work can be based on a quite simple thought. These books again work as a set. They are attractive but also appropriate, using the kind of deco patterns that would have surrounded Fitzgerald’s characters. But the touch of genius is the use of gold – very much a New York deco material, but also one which evokes a certain gilded lifestyle that was so much the subject of Fitzgerald’s writing. So, great branding, that looks stunning, is appropriate and also offers a comment on the book’s tone and subject. Not bad work for a piece of pattern design and evidence that complicated strategy is not always that essential – sometimes the work speaks (or sings) for itself.

So a final thought – I think the team at Penguin are a wonderful example of how to run a brand with the mentality of curators. This means selecting talent they admire and putting it to work, rather than pitching out projects piecemeal. I’m not certain my assumptions here are correct, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if more brands were visually managed with a curator rather than traditional client mentality? It would certainly make life more fun for the clients themselves!

The book designs were found via Brain Pickings.