Timeless vintage brands #3 Penguin Books

Strolling around the dusty shelves of one of best bookstores of Paris, Shakespeare and Company, I discovered in a little display case an old book published by Penguin in 1938... and I was really surprised about, firstly, the fact that this publisher exists since a lot of time ago and, secondly, its logo, which has changed since then... Indeed, bringing the book at home with me, I became curious about the history of this publisher and of its wonderful logo, a great sample of timeless vintage brands about which I'm writing latterly...

Still during 1930s, good books were expensive, and people for reading them had to be either rich or have a library card. The only popular-price books available on the market were "lurid" fictions almost without cultural qualities... or at least that was what Allen Lane - the creator of Penguin Books - stated one day when, coming back in London from a journey to Agatha Christie's house in Devon, wanted to buy a book for the travel but did not found any good book in the station store... so his idea was to contribute to create a new type of books: the modern paperbacks! That's a good book that does not cost more than a cigarette pack. Following this idea, Penguin was incorporated in 1935, the original price of each book was 6 pennies, and since them it has as mark a little penguin on the front-page and on the spine...

What attired my curiosity is: why a penguin? Well, according with the website of the publisher, Allen Lane was consciousness about the novelty represented by the new brand and for it he desired a "dignified but flippant" symbol for distinguish his books, and a secretary of him simply suggested to use a penguin... indeed I find this logo really flippant, for that I took decision to hand carve a rubber stamp of it and to use it for my bookmarks! I hope you like them, you can find them on my etsy!