OUGD503 - Responsive - Penguin Books - Eye Magazine - Penguin Crime

This article by Eye magazine on the work of Romek Marber and his famous 'Marber Grid'. The grid was so successful for the Penguin Crime series it became the standard for all Penguin Book design soon after. The article explains that the grid shows impeccable logic that breaks down what needs to be retained and replaced. The article also explains that the typographic choice and use of Akidenz Grotesk showed Marber was concious of the Swiss style to which the typography is indebted.

What this typographic structure allowed was for Marber to really experiment and push the illustrative side of the designs, Marbers use of collage photography and drawing combined a tactile approach to in some cases very old stories, this new style that aimed to replicate the crime novels chilling content made the books a real success and reimagined some of the stories in a more contemporary light. 

Marber seemed to have total freedom when designing these covers eh explains that almost never did a cover get rejected, the article explains that he would often make covers in batches of 10, he explains his reasoning for this ‘When you do a lot of covers it stops being a matter of life and death. You are not so tight about them that you want to make every cover a masterpiece.’

When asked if Marber was designs these covers in a form of self expression he explained that 'Reading the books was in itself a relaxed diversion and doing a cover was the excitement of trying to get across what I had just read in a single image.’ This idea of a singular image is vital in cover design often the only communication will be through type and imagery. 

"Marber’s images add up to a multifaceted graphic response to the darker side of human behaviour. If his grid represents an attempt to maintain social order, the images held in place below it express what happens when the criminal impulse goes unchecked."

This quote above from the eye magazine article explains the ideas behind the Marber crime covers and use of grid. This idea of trying to express the ideas of a criminal for a crime cover is very radical and a intriguing thought process when working.