Judging the Cover of a Book

Penguin art director Paul Buckley shares how he chose the 75 best covers to celebrate the publisher's anniversary.

From a piece in Salon...

Growing up, were you taken aback by Penguin book designs? What was the first cover that caught your eye?

I honestly cannot say that I had any Penguin moments as a child -- until the age of 13 my reading consisted solely of science fiction and anything on biology. Though I do remember my first book cover eureka moment ... I was 12 and we had just moved into my stepmother's house, and everything was new to me. Upon exploring the garage I came upon a huge open box full of pulp books from the '50s. They really grabbed me and I remember going through them one by one. There were easily 300 books in this box that probably held the washer or dryer; each cover was more insanely fabulous than the next. Not long after, no doubt to make space, that box was thrown out without much thought, which makes me nuts to think about. I fantasize that if I had those books today, I'd somehow create a wall with them, maybe behind a sheet of plexiglas that goes edge to edge, floor to ceiling, and just stare at this beautifully odd spectacle of books.

As a designer, what was it about Penguin paperbacks that drew you in initially, before you started working for the company?

In this regard, my path was an incredibly lucky one. I was working as both a freelance illustrator and designer and had just come back from a three-month trip through Central America and was looking for something steady just long enough to get my finances back in shape. Through a sister of a friend, I landed an interview at New American Library (NAL) and was immediately hired as a junior mass-market designer. In the next room over, they were doing trade books, and that felt like a much better fit to me. The art director took a liking to me, and two months later, hired me to work on the Dutton and Plume imprints. Soon after I started, NAL merged with Penguin, and the Penguin art director inherited me. He rapidly shook off these new employees, but I was tenacious and put up with everything he threw at me and was the only one that clung on -- and I'm still here. So to answer your question, like much in life, I just wound up here; but once I did, I very quickly realized what an amazing place I was in, and I was not leaving. No publishing house has the cachet that Penguin does, and that was very hard-earned on their part. We do the best books and embrace great art and design and the people working on this imprint are wonderful and smart and funny. I was simply extremely lucky.