Penguin Modern series

Launched on February 22, 2018, Penguin Modern is series of low-priced paperback editions of modern literature by Penguin Books.

Each little book in the Penguin Modern series offers a concentrated hit of its author’s work. From complete stories to essays and speeches to poems, these books celebrate the groundbreaking writers who today define the radical spirit of Penguin Modern Classics.

Initially spanning fifty titles, each book from the series costs £1. The full collection is also available as a box set.

For this series, Penguin’s Art Director Jim Stoddart specified ITC Avant Garde Gothic, in tightly spaced caps, and with its iconic alternates and ligatures, like the one for TH, or the nested double L. The color used for all books is referred to as “eau-de-nil”, i.e. a pale turquoise.

From Mark Sinclair’s article for Creative Review:

The cover designs for the new series are “all about the titling typography”, says Art Director Jim Stoddart, who explains that favouring type instead of imagery over the 50 books enabled Penguin to keep the price for the series low.

“A fundamental ingredient for these new covers is Herb Lubalin’s Avant Garde typeface which is already thoroughly in use as ‘brand font’ on all Penguin Modern Classics and originally selected for the job as a symbol of modernistic progression,” says Stoddart.

“For the pictureless Penguin Modern covers, rather than use the familiar upper- and lower-case setting, we’ve switched to all-caps – where Avant Garde has its own amazing and extensive ligatures – creating an even more potent cover appearance. This way these little covers fearlessly compliment the progressive, creative, often powerful writing within the books.”

The dedicated website has a complete list of all titles, with a short summary for each of them, and an animated version of the cover designs.