Penguin Books is a British publishing house founded in 1935 by Allen Lane, who sought to produce quality paperback books at an affordable price.[1] Its visual identity centers on a penguin logomark, originally sketched at London Zoo, which has become one of the most recognized symbols in publishing.[2]
Design and History
The Penguin logo was first created in 1935 by Edward Young, a 21-year-old office junior at the company, after he spent a day sketching penguins at London Zoo’s Penguin Pool.[3] Young was dispatched to the zoo by Allen Lane, who had decided on an animal logo inspired by the publishing house The Albatross Library. The name “Penguin” was suggested by Lane’s secretary, Joan Coles.[4]
Young also designed the tribune, the three horizontal stripes on Penguin book covers, with colors indicating genre: orange for fiction, green for crime, dark blue for biography, cerise for travel and adventure, and pale blue for non-fiction.[5]
Young’s original penguin was redesigned several times in the first decade. A version facing right, described as “dancing,” appeared in 1937, followed by a more serious version in 1939 that more closely resembles the current logo.[4]
In 1946, graphic designer and typographer Jan Tschichold redrew Young’s logo, creating a version that remained in use until 2003.[4] Tschichold worked at Penguin for three years and developed a comprehensive guide for how Penguin books should be designed and laid out.[6]
In 2003, as Penguin approached its 50th anniversary, the company commissioned Pentagram Design to review its brand identity. Pentagram partner Angus Hyland led the redesign, which was based closely on Tschichold’s 1946 version.[4] Hyland discovered that many different versions of the logo were being used across Penguin’s international territories, corrupted through poor reproduction, redrawing, or early digitization.[4]
The most significant change in the 2003 refresh was slimming the penguin by 15 percent. Hyland described it as “putting the 50-year-old on the treadmill,” noting that a slimmer bird could appear taller on the narrow format of a paperback spine, which is the most commonly seen application of the brand.[4] Other subtle changes included placing the penguin’s feet on the horizon line and raising its beak slightly to make it appear “more chipper.”[4] Hyland also decreased the white space of the stomach and added a thicker black outline for increased legibility on the spine.[7]
Following the 2013 merger of Penguin and Random House, Pentagram created a new corporate identity for the combined company, Penguin Random House. The system introduced a wordmark that could be paired with any of the group’s 250 imprint logos. The US version uses the wordmark alone, while the UK version pairs the company name with the familiar penguin.[8]
Meaning and Symbolism
The Penguin logo’s endurance has been attributed to its simplicity and easy identification. Hannah Lowery, archivist at the University of Bristol’s Penguin Archive, says the logo has endured “because it is simple, because it is easy to identify, and as a brand says quality.”[4] Angus Hyland has noted that the “quirky” character of the penguin is a quality the company shares.[4]
The orange color used in Penguin’s branding traces back to the original cover color-coding system, where orange signified fiction. The orange of the “bookends” framing the Penguin Random House wordmark was described by Pentagram as “a subtle reference to Penguin’s brand heritage.”[8]
Typography and Design
For the Penguin Random House corporate identity created in 2013, Pentagram selected the typeface Shift Light, designed by Jeremy Mickel. The typeface was chosen for its neutrality, literary character, and legibility at small sizes. In its lighter weights, Shift evokes a typewriter font, providing a connection to the traditional world of writers and writing.[8]
Logo Index is an independent educational archive covering logos, visual identities and graphic design history. All trademarks and brand assets remain the property of their respective owners.
