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Hunting for Penguins
 I’ve been on a Penguin hunting frenzy. Not the black and white variety, but the black and green variety – the 1960s green crime series Penguin paperbacks. My earliest glimpse of a green penguin was in an article in Eye Magazine that detailed the designer Romek Marber’s contribution to Penguin in the 1960s. Marber redesigned the Penguin grid for the series, as well as designing numerous covers featuring highly stylised, graphic illustrations that summed up the sentiment of the book in striking, often symbolic, imagery. This was later followed by a timely trip to the Victoria and Albert to see the Penguin covers exhibition celebrating their 70th anniversary. After buying a set of Penguin mugs a few days later at the Design Museum, clearly, I was on my way to becoming a collector. It came unexpectedly one lazy Saturday morning in Fremantle when my mum took me to one of her favourite haunts – the second storey of Elizabeth’s Bookshop. A flash of green and black caught my eye and pleasant memories of my trip came flooding back. And then I saw another. Each one only a dollar! Eleven green penguins later, as well as buying the comprehensive book Penguin by Design  and I am itching to hit the second-hand books stores again. So, there it is – a story of how one collector came into being. If there are any collectors out there, we would love to know what you collect and why? |
Posted by Lisa at 11:21 AM
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