Penguin Classics RED

Penguin have just launched their new Classics RED series. Having partnered with (Product)RED, they are issuing newly designed classics, from the sales of which 50% of profits will go the Global Fund to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. I think the new covers look great, and it's refreshing to see a major publisher seeking to do more than merely bolster their own sales - especially so during an economic depression, and considering that publishing is not an industry which generates huge profits.

I love the Edith Wharton House of Mirth cover - with the quotation 'Who wants a dingy woman? We are expected to be pretty and well dressed till we drop...'. The design on Dickens' Great Expectations is good too - I like the way the script continues down into the red section of the cover. As publishers become increasingly concerned with the importance of the digital 'revolution' to the publishing industry, I find more and more that I appreciate books designed as attractive physical objects for us to keep and treasure, enjoying their feel and aesthetic appeal. I do nearly always judge a book by its cover - rightly or wrongly I want it to provide visual as well as reading pleasure. Here we have beautifully designed books, with their sales helping a good cause - what's not to like?

Books do have the power to make a great difference to people's lives, and in supporting a good cause this potential is made even more explicit, as Penguin's Editorial Director Alexis Kirschbaum successful conveys:

'At Penguin Classics we are fortunate enough to believe passionately not only in how good our books are but in the good that they do for the people who read them. As editors, our role is to be the temporary custodians of the world's literature, which is a role that is always much bigger than ourselves. But sometimes an opportunity to do something good comes along that casts our motives into even clearer relief. Our partnership with (RED) will enable the books to indirectly reach the lives of people beyound our readers.'

Well done Penguin!

P.S. If you are interested in book cover design you might find this article from the Guardian books blog interesting - on how the book market has been flooded with generic mass market covers. Depressing reading, but another reason to appreciate original and innovatively designed books!