Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Penguin Cover System: Constant bands top and bottom with a fixed central field, only words changing
- Type
- Set in Penguin Cover System's manner (One serif face fixed, size and leading unchanged across every volume), and let Proofreading Marks's lettering (Corrections in red and queries in pencil, one color per person) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Penguin Cover System's material (Ground colors limited to the categories, one paper stock throughout); bring in exactly one thing from Proofreading Marks (Proofs printed at full size with margins wide enough to write in).
- Colour
- Build on #e9dbce, #f03f17, #140e0f and admit one accent from #e5c7bc, #558386, #54342d.
Where they fight
- Penguin Cover System and Proofreading Marks stand roughly 385 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle.
Caution
- Penguin Cover System Making an exception for each title breaks the premise that the system is the product and the shelf stops reading.
- Proofreading Marks Corrections written as prose instead of marks leave the extent of each change open to reading, and every pass introduces fresh errors.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Penguin Cover System (style, 1935–) and their accent from Proofreading Marks (technique, 16th century–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Penguin Cover System exists for: launching a book series that will hold together as the volume count grows, or sorting subjects or levels by color so a shelf reads at a glance. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Penguin Cover System - Color-coded bands - Rigorous composition rules - The Marber grid - Consistency as a series Composition: Constant bands top and bottom with a fixed central field, only words changing. Type and lettering: One serif face fixed, size and leading unchanged across every volume. ## Accent comes from Proofreading Marks, used sparingly - Lines pairing text and margin - Deletion and restoration exchanges - Insertion and transposition signs - The hierarchy of red Let one material quality come from it: Proofs printed at full size with margins wide enough to write in. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #e9dbce, carry the structure in #f03f17 and #140e0f, and let a single accent come from #558386. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: trust, calm, play, technique, intimacy. ## Where they fight - Penguin Cover System and Proofreading Marks stand roughly 385 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle. ## What goes wrong - Penguin Cover System: Making an exception for each title breaks the premise that the system is the product and the shelf stops reading. - Proofreading Marks: Corrections written as prose instead of marks leave the extent of each change open to reading, and every pass introduces fresh errors. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Penguin Cover System 1935– / Style / Publishing and Editing
From the tripartite color bands of the first covers through Tschichold's composition rules to Marber's ruled grid, Penguin kept reinventing the cover as a design system. The paperback became a textbook of modern design.
- Proofreading Marks 16th century– / Technique / Symbol Systems
A sign language that corrects a typeset page through dialogue with its margins. The back-and-forth of deletion and stet, and the Western dele, were refined alongside the history of printing into an editing protocol that stands behind every typeset work, this dictionary included.
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