Cover Design Award

My design system is inspired by traditional printing techniques, such as screen printing, which uses halftones to recreate bold images, and Penguin’s own classic colour scheme.

Displaying the themes and symbolism found within each novel, I chose images from Open Access libraries which would give the reader a hint of the dramatic stories found inside.

I founded my design within the amazing roster of past Penguin book designs, most notable being the original 1935 design and the Marber grid of 1961.

Combining these, I gave the new title block a distinctly modern feel which juxtaposes the busyness of the halftone images.

My concept introduces a graphical border which roughly evokes the shape of a penguin bird.

My aim was to create a simple, appealing graphic which leaves plenty of room for an illustration or photo and typography.

Having gone with such an untraditional border graphic, I felt sticking with Helvetica would help to keep the design grounded and reminiscent of historic Penguin covers.

The coloured stripes reference Penguin’s 1985 colour-coding system, updated to a contemporary palette that works for both print and digital marketing.

To create visual intrigue, photography is abstract, subtly hinting at the book’s themes — images are divided into two, ensuring the crop works independently and forms a connected visual when the cover is laid flat.

While the halves may not be seen together, they encourage the reader to make a connection between them.

Challenging traditional cover conventions, I chose to incorporate the genre onto the cover, ensuring readers can instantly identify the book’s subject, no matter where they see it.

I was inspired by Myriorama cards—illustrations that can be rearranged to create endless stories.

A book is a story in itself, but what if each cover connected to another, allowing readers to place them side by side, at the spine, front, or back, forming new narratives?

As an illustrator, I love when artwork takes the lead, so I chose the simple, elegant DIN Condensed typeface.

For colour and imagery, I drew inspiration from Gertrude Abercrombie’s dreamlike compositions and Aubrey Beardsley’s bold, intricate linework.

After considering Penguins design principles, I decided to create covers that emulate the texture and colours of riso printing - while working around my lack of access to one.

I created halftone textures in Photoshop and used transparency settings to layer over colours. I used paintings, tapestries, and artefacts from the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art digital archive to achieve a distinctive look that references the content of the books.

For example: the cover for Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow uses a Japanese woodblock print to represent the look of the first game that the main characters build together.

My design system is a modern evolution of Penguin’s original tri-band book covers, honouring their legacy while appealing to today’s audience.

The consistent structure across genres not only satisfies book lovers who enjoy a visually cohesive ‘shelfie’ but also reinforces Penguin’s identity as a publisher of accessible, affordable books.

The three bands are reimagined through three icons representing key themes of each book, framed by a bold title band for instant recognition—ideal for readers with
short attention spans.

The typeface, inspired by Penguin’s classic designs, blends heritage with modernity, while the colour palettes subtly shift by genre: warm oranges and pinks for contemporary fiction, deep reds for classics, and teals and greens for non-fiction, echoing the clarity of vintage Pelican books.

The icons themselves are intentionally simple, drawing from familiar visual cues to engage the reader while offering layered meaning for those who take a closer look.

The design embraces the three founding principles of Penguin’s original design system — bold, distinctive, and mass-market — through using expansive negative space, and bright contrasting colours, creating an immediacy in its visual impact.

The design reinterprets the iconic design of the original penguin covers, making the stripes instead have a more architectural/monumental feel, with an asymmetrical layout that adds drama and movement to the cover.

This design maintains the simplicity and clarity that defines Penguin’s identity but also introduces a modern, dynamic twist to a well-loved template creating a design that stands out in today’s market.

My design celebrates the idea that books are as vital to our world as the paintings we display on our walls. Each book began with an artist, a blank canvas and a story to tell.

I was inspired by the notion that, when fully opened, a book could be framed and hung like a piece of art.

They carry immense personal value and serve as a form of expression and identity.

Just as we showcase our favourite art pieces, our book collections also tell stories. Penguin Books are masterpieces deserving of this elevated display, merging literature and art in a powerful visual statement.

Celebrating Penguin Random House is at the heart of my design system with 90 symbols representing 90 years at the forefront of publishing.

I designed the two-tone colour palette to remain true to Penguin's founding principles of bold colours and symbols that can be easily adapted to suit the tone and themes of each book.

I wanted to create a clean system that is accessible and intriguing to all audiences, modernising the iconic Penguin style of timeless book cover design.

I retained the classic tri-band layout to preserve the “Penguiness” of the design system while modernising the middle band into a blurred transparent strip for a clean and refreshed look.

I chose to use coherent yet infinitely variable colour gradients to accommodate various genres and time periods, creating covers that will flirt (Lady Chatterley’s Lover), dazzle (Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow), or evoke the aura of a prehistoric sunrise (Sapiens).