Penguin's 60 Classic Years

2006 is the 60th anniversary of Penguin Classics, the world's preeminent publisher of great literature.

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of Penguin Classics, another version of "The Odyssey," an extract beginning with Odysseus's return home from the Trojan War, has been published in the new Penguin Epics series. Featuring the most dramatic passages of 20 classic texts, including "Beowulf" and Dante's "Inferno," each Epic is designed in a glamorous neo-Gothic style by EstuaryEnglish. "These are stories of the brutality, drama and tragedy that people love in computer games," said Jim Stoddart, art director of Penguin Press. "By drawing on the visual language of computer games, we wanted to persuade games fans to read about the same themes in these books."

Penguin Books is a British publisher founded in 1935 by Allen Lane. Lane's idea was to provide quality writing cheaply, for the same price as a pack of cigarettes. He also wanted them to be sold not only in bookshops but in train stations, general stores and corner shops. Its most emblematic products are its paperbacks.

In the early days, Penguin paperbacks had distinctive colour schemes: orange and white for general fiction, green and white for crime fiction, a maroon colour for the travel series and dark blue for biographies. Some recent publications of literature from that time have duplicated the original look.

In the 1980s and 1990s, design was marginalized in book publishing as the balance of corporate power shifted towards finance and marketing. The exceptions were mostly small independent publishing houses. This situation seems to be changing for obvious reasons.

It is necessary to entice younger readers , who are more tuned to the digital medium, to read these classics. So Penguin has to make its classic covers cool by offering inspiring graphics and woo a seductive audience.

Looking at Penguin's covers it is clear that the publishers have given their classics a makeover.
Cartoonists and graphical artists are coming to the forefront of the design industry through their cover works of the much loved Penguin Classics.

Click here and see how these timeless works have turned colourful and out of the box.