Penguin By Designers
A
Study Day in conjunction with the V&A display “70 Years of Penguin Design”
Saturday 18 June 2005
11am-4pm Lecture Theatre, Victoria & Albert Museum, South Kensington,
London
Biographies
John Miles
John Miles was assistant to Hans Schmoller at Penguin Books from 1954-58. Thereafter he joined the late Colin Banks to form the design partnership Banks & Miles. Their work included major projects for, among others, Royal Mail, British Telecom, London Transport, The United Nations and Cambridge University Press. In a personal capacity John Miles was adviser to the Dutch banknote printers Enschedé, The Monotype Corporation and HMSO. He continues to practise as a graphic designer in between bursts of painting and gardening.
Romek Marber (Emeritus Professor)
Romek Marber studied at St Martins School of Art (1950-53) and the Royal College of Art
(1953-56). After a brief period assisting Herbert Spencer he embarked on a
freelance graphic design career. He was design consultant to Robert Nicholson
Publications (1959-75) designing guides to London including the London Guide
and the London Street Finder. His design for Penguin Books Crime Series covers
(1961-68) was later extended to the Fiction and Pelican covers. He also designed
Penguin’s promotional material and packaging. In 1964 he assisted in
launching the Observer Colour Supplement, acting for a year as art director
and for a further year as consultant. He has done
numerous covers and illustrations for the Economist, New Society, Queen and
Town magazines, posters and film credits for the British Film Institute, London
Planetarium and Columbia Pictures. He was visiting teacher at St Martin’s
School of Art and London College of Printing.
Concurrent with the ongoing design practice, he was appointed consultant head
of Department of Graphic Design at Hornsey College of Art / Middlesex Polytechnic
(1967-90). The subsequent years he has largely been applying to writing.
Derek Birdsall RDI
Born Yorkshire 1934. Studied at Wakefield College of Art, Yorkshire 194952, and at Central School of Arts and Crafts, London 1952-55 under Jesse Collins & Anthony Froshaug. After National Service with RAOC printing unit in Cyprus, started freelance practice in 1957, also teaching at the London School of Printing, Maidstone College of Art and Central School. The B of BDMW Associates 1960-65. Designer of the first Pirelli Calendar (1964), literature for Lotus cars, house styles for Dorothy Gray and United Overseas Bank, Singapore. Designer of Monty Python books and many Penguin book covers. Art Director of Town, Twen, Nova, Connoisseur, Pegasus (Mobil Corporation), and Tsuru (Japan Airlines) magazines. Design consultancies have included Mobil Corporation, United Technologies Corporation and IBM Europe. Elected Fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers (FSIAD) 1963, member of Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) 1968, Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) 1983 and Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art 1986. Editor and designer of Fischer v Spassky Reykjavik 1972, The Living Treasures of Japan 1973, A Book of Chess 1974, The Technology of Man a visual history 1978 and (with Bruce Bernard) Lucian Freud 1996. Founder of Omnific Studios 1983. New York Art Directors Club Gold Award for Shaker Design 1987. Visiting Professor of Graphic Arts and Design at the Royal College of Art 1987-88. Tutor and designer of house-style for Prince of Wales’s Institute of Architecture 1991. Design consultant, National Art Collections Fund 1989-1996. Designer of The Independent Magazine (1988), The Sunday Telegraph Magazine (1996), Mark Rothko: Catalogue Raisonné (1998), and Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England (2000). Georgia OKeeffe (2001), Alfred Stieglitz (2003). notes on book design by Derek Birdsall was published by Yale University Press, May 2004. His postage stamps for Royal Mail to commemorate The Royal Society of Arts 250th year were published in August 2004.
Jerry Cinamon
Jerry Cinamon specialised in the design of integrated art and architecture books (notably the Pelican History of Art series). He was also Art Editor of Allen Lane The Penguin Press, and Chief Designer of Penguin Books.
David Pelham
Born in Gloucestershire, England, in 1938, David Pelham studied at St Martin's School of Art, London. After graduating in 1958 he began his career designing magazines and books. As Art Editor of the art magazine Studio International in 1961 he worked closely with many of the leading painters, print-makers and sculptors of the day. Some five years later he was appointed Art Director of Harper's Bazaar, commissioning work from eminent photographers, illustrators and designers the world over. In 1968 he joined Penguin Books as Fiction Art Director and was later appointed overall Art Director in 1972. While at Penguin, in 1975 he wrote and designed his award-winning international best-seller The Penguin Book of Kites which was published in nine foreign language editions and is still in print. Pelham left Penguin in 1980 to concentrate on writing and designing his own books, and in 1982 he was awarded the Gold Award for book design by D&AD. In that same year, in collaboration with Dr Jonathan Miller, Pelham co-authored and designed the hugely successful pop-up book The Human Body, with editions in Hebrew, Arabic and Greek and all the major world languages. Essentially it was the first seriously intentioned pop-up book, appealing to a new and wider market and inspiring many imitators. The Human Body won Pelham many awards, including the Gold Award from the Art Directors Club of New York, the Book of the Year Award of the 1983 Frankfurt Book Fair, and it has gone on to sell some three million copies worldwide. In 1984 Pelham pursued his interest in pop-up and novelty books by accepting the position of Creative Director with Intervisual Books in the USA. After three years or so commuting between his offices in Los Angeles, Colombia - where his books were then manufactured – and London, he left Intervisual to once again concentrate on his own titles. In the late 80s he was back in the USA and Mexico creating the largest pop-up ever made. This was his very popular anatomical figure 'Dimensional Man', a life-size wall chart which is to be seen in doctors’ surgeries and medical establishments the world over. In 1995 he began a long-term collaboration with the sculptor Anthony Caro, creating a wall-mounted folding sculpture in a multiple edition of 500. Author, designer and illustrator of over thirty books, Pelham now works mainly in London, where he lives with his publisher wife Jacqueline and their family.
Jim Stoddart
Born in Kingston-Upon-Thames in 1971. After graduating in Sheffield, Jim went straight into a job at Bill Smith Studio in London designing record and CD covers for such labels as EMI, Virgin, BMG, Mute and Trojan Records. He joined Penguin five years later where he worked as a cover designer under the Art Direction of Pascale Hutton. From there he worked for 18 months with Chris Ashworth under Lewis Blackwell at Getty Images. Then in 2001 back to Penguin as Art Director of Penguin Press where he has overseen the redesign and rebranding of Penguin Classics, Penguin Reference, as well as designing and art directing covers for Penguin's Allen Lane hardback imprint, Penguin non-fiction paperbacks and Penguin Modern Classics.
Phil Baines
Born 1958 Kendal, Westmorland. Graduated from St Martin's School of Art in 1985 and the Royal College of Art in 1987. Has worked as a freelance designer since that date (for clients including the Crafts Council, Goethe-Institut London, Matt's Gallery and Monotype Typography) and since 1991 has been a Senior Lecturer (half f/t) in Typography at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design in London. His survey of Penguin book covers Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935–2005, has just been published by Allen Lane The Penguin Press. Previous books include Type & Typography, (with Andrew Haslam, 2002); and Signs, Lettering in the Environment, (with Catherine Dixon, 2003), both published by Laurence King.
Page last updated: 5 June 2005