Designer: David Pearson
"This cover is exactly what I like about the series: beautifully balanced type; excellent quotation; a type style appropriate to Hazlitt’s era (early 19th century)." Photograph: Penguin
Designer: David Pearson
"Many of the most successful titles shared a similar minimalism – Voltaire's essay is another good example" Photograph: Penguin
Designer: David Pearson
"The Prince is here because it is all that's left of my original design concept for the series. I spent huge amounts of time looking through old books of emblems trying to come up with a little gizmo for each one. This jaunty helmet is all that remains of that initiative" Photograph: Penguin
Designer: Phil Baines
"This was a completely unhelpful jacket in every way: you can’t read it; what had been a pertinent cover quote is reduced to a mockery. And yet - what an excellent piece of design!" Photograph: Penguin
Designer: David Pearson
"There's a related issue with this cover, which is based on the title page of an old Penguin illustrated edition of Thoreau. It's a ridiculously introverted joke: the highly obscure version of the Penguin logo and the publisher address only makes sense if you're aware of the original book, which of course nobody is. I remember vigorous arguments about whether the Penguin should be coloured blue (to make it clear that it is a logo) or black (so it would look funny walking towards a New England pond)" Photograph: Penguin
Designer: David Pearson
"Hyper-minimalism was successfully used in the witty jacket for An Apology for Idlers, which couldn't even be bothered to put in the author’s name, let alone the incredibly apposite quote from Stevenson that had been chosen ... " Photograph: Penguin
Designer: Alistair Hall
"... but my favourite in this area must be Writings from the Zen Masters, which manages to junk the title, the authors and the incredibly apposite quote in favour of a single, lovely action of the wrist – plus an absurd sort of Japanese ink-stamp version of the Penguin" Photograph: Penguin
Designer: David Pearson
"The Wolf Man is one of a number of excellent genuflections to early 20th century central European type styles" Photograph: Penguin
Designer: Catherine Dixon
"This cover takes the prize for the most ingenious marshalling of huge amounts of type. Charles Mackay’s wonderful book was one of the first to report accurately on the rise and fall of different street slang, and we thought it would be fun to bring back to life some early Victorian cockney larrikin expressions" Photograph: Penguin
Designer: David Pearson
"Last off, I have to mention Books v. Cigarettes. The third set of Great Ideas were all green and black so it seemed a shame not to have an homage, however irrelevant, to the 1960s Penguin Crime livery. Having established this non-existent link with Orwell’s essays from the 1930s, the designer then successfully pleaded to be allowed a devastating exception to the design rules – an exception that undermines the integrity of the whole series, forms a Perec-like assault on social norms and that will be obvious to all readers" Photograph: Penguin
