Penguin are the paperback publisher of my favorite author, Graham Greene, and most of my copies of his books are the orange-spined Penguin Paperback editions. T

Penguin are the paperback publisher of my favorite author, Graham Greene, and most of my copies of his books are the orange-spined Penguin Paperback editions. That color branding (which was phased out in the early 90s) was a brilliant way to make their books stand out on bookstore shelves. I discovered other authors in the 80s by means of picking up random orange-spined books from the fiction shelves at bookstores back in the 80s. Should my novel ever find a publisher and be printed in a paperback edition for which I have any influence in cover design, I’m going to request that the spine be Penguin paperback–orange. The covers of the first Penguin Paperbacks, with their austere Gill Sans typography are, of course also iconic, to the extent that they are often mimicked in products like notebooks and other book-like products offered for sale.