To commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of Penguin Books, Penguin's long-time creative director Paul Buckley chose 75 book covers that represent the best of what Penguin has produced over the course of the last decade and investigated the design process behind each one. The selection was published as Penguin 75: Designers, Authors, Commentary (the good, the bad...), a book that came out in 2010.
Produced by Emzin Institute and Penguin Group, the exhibition - just like the book - is not only about covers, but also about the simple and complicated, witty and tragic stories behind book designs. It describes the psychology that created all the variables that led to this cover over the 20 other proposed covers. What worked and what didn't? What did the designer or illustrator think? What did the author think? The project features commentary and contributions by Paul Auster, Nicholas Blechman, David Byrne, Brian Cronin, Elizabeth Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi, Roseanne Serra, Art Spiegelman, Ruben Toledo, Tomer Hanuka, Paul Sahre, Chris Ware, etc.
The exhibition shows book covers featured in Penguin 75 and a selection of books from this collection. It also displays spicy commentary by cover designers and illustrators, book authors and Penguin representatives. For the occasion of the exhibition in the Vžigalica Gallery, the author of the selection Paul Buckley has designed an announcement poster, which will be given out to visitors.