Good Questions: Vintage Penguin Book Covers as Art?

So, within the last month (I think), there have been a couple of posts or emails from AT that included pictures of rooms where there were large wall-sized posters of blown up vintage Penguin Books covers, like the photo above. Where can one find these? I'm a huge fan of vintage Penguins, and I think they look great as wall art when blown up like that. Although having seen them in two recent posts now, I wonder if they threaten to become the next "Keep Calm and Carry On" wall art cliche? Any light you can throw on the matter would be appreciated. Thanks, Nathan

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Great question! Anyone?

Comments (32)

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=11100201
quick google search found this

The photo is from Living Etc., and the canvas is from the Conran Shop (so say the photo credits). I did a quick search of their website but could only find coffee mugs with Penguin covers on them. I'd also love to know if these are available elsewhere.

beats the hell out of keep calm and carry on

I have seen them on Barnes & Noble's website--a huge collection--though I am trying to find them right now and can't.

Oh man, is it even a question if Penguin book covers are art? The best decor, is, of course, a bookcase full of those orange spines....

That first link - not a fan.

The scale is so important here. The etsy shop only prints up to 20 x 30 inches.

You can also have images enlarged / printed...

Samy's in LA can enlarge and print a photo in almost any size. It is not cheap. They printed a photo for me at just over 3 feet x 6 feet in size, and mounted it on foamcore. It cost about $600. For the impact, though, I thought it was worth it.

I also found lots of places on-line that do this, but they have to roll it up and mail it, so you'd have to mount it yourself. May or may not be an issue for some.

I thought Kinkos would be able to do this, but they can't print that large.

Here are mugs, anyway.

http://www.artmeetsmatter.com/products.php?cat=11&pg=1

http://www.artmeetsmatter.com/products.php?cat=27

Penguin canvases. A little expensive.

If there are no copyright issues, you could head over to your nearest Kinko's and see what they can do. Often they have the capabilities for blowing up into huge poster size. But it wouldn't be canvas.

That said, you could also take a series of covers and frame them simply an dput them up...

or you could just get the books to read.

I'm writing my thesis on Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and I currently have the Penguin Classics Gatsby mug sitting next to my laptop. Very cool Christmas present that! My parents ordered it from the UK-based artmeetsmatters website above, and it arrived in Belgium in under a week.

if you visit a fantastic toronto gallery website:
canvasgallery.ca
you'll find an assortment of silkscreens of penguin book covers by a lovely illustrator and artist, alanna cavanagh... (her's are similar in scale and can be framed..)
you'll see..

Did anyone else's funnybone get tickled by the selection of The Big Sleep to decorate the wall of the bedroom?

"Did anyone else's funnybone get tickled by the selection of The Big Sleep to decorate the wall of the bedroom?"

Well, I suppose putting Great Expectations up there might be a bit too much pressure...

I'd go for The Big Sleep or A Room Of One's Own

I totally caught the penguin title on that poster! Both The Big Sleep and A Room of One's Own are brilliant. Love Penguin books.

BTW, has anyone noticed that the CURRENT issue of House Beautiful touts the Keep Calm poster, with a resource price of over $200? Yikes.

I love the canvases. The deckchairs are cool, too, and kind of funny.

I saw this canvas & couldn't find anything is a decent price range in the UK.
So I bought a linen tea towel and I will be mounting it, cost 8 GBP compared to the 99 GBP for the same size canvas on the above links.

Joan A - I work for Barnes & Noble.com and we have a few large framed Penguin covers hanging up around the office. But we no longer carry posters.

ROTFL tgsgirl

joe kral has a nice collection of vintage covers on his flickr page. too low-res to blow up, but nice inspiration... or you can make your own.

"If there are no copyright issues..."

I hope the people enforcing copyright issues aren't checking my bedroom for book covers!
You can reprint anything from a book once, for personal use, so I'm sure you could make a giant copy of the cover. For better quality, or to print on canvas, you should try a professional photography store. I know Adorama in NY does large prints, on paper or canvas.

Only just discovered this - we're the company which makes the prints - there are now over 140 to choose from plus classics from Faber. Regarding copyright, FYI there are no public domain rights to copy something once. Obviously, we don't have the thought police yet so I'm sure no-one is snooping in your bedroom (unless it's a cover of 1984!) but I would avoid copying any book cover without permissions from designer, publisher, photographer, author etc, etc...Anyway, if you'd like to see more try www.artmeetsprint.com

Just for the record: Penguin books were around for a long time, but they achieved their classic form when, after WW2, the designer Jan Tschichold was given the commission to redesign them. He gave them their classic form. He also redesigned the Penguin logo. He made the bird less wobly than it had been. For some reason, the wobly version is used on some of the cups shown online.

Tschichold was a radical modernist in his youth, but later he became an advocate of sophisticated traditional typography.

You may want to check out the work of the wonderful Toronto illustrator Alanna Cavanaugh: www.i2iart.com

Her take on the Penguin bookcovers are stunning!

You can also have any design or print done on canvas at allpopart.com/canvas. Their prices are great for the quality. A 26x32 is about $185 including shipping to the US.

The Literary Gift Company in the UK has a good selection. http://www.theliterarygiftcompany.com/book-cover-posters-66-c.asp

How about Mock Penguin covers? Very cool and well done examples found here.... with a links to different attempts as well in the responses....
http://www.changethethought.com/mock-penguin-book-covers/

Thanks to Palindromatic for mentioning The Literary Gift Company's book cover poster department. I have just set up a cheaper poster only postage rate for overseas customers, which I hope will help Apartment Therapy readers.
Thanks
Dani

Although they are not the penguin covers, I e-mailed Barnes & Noble about the ones they use and was told they buy them here -- http://buyenlarge.com/subsites/Classic%20Books/classic_books.html

FOUND THEM!

http://www.artmeetsmatter.com/products.php?cat=27

Hi there Miss Yvonne,
Thanks so much for posting your comment.
Small correction: The i2iart link is my illustration agency.
My personal website where you can find my silkscreen prints
is www.alannacavanagh.com
They are also available framed at Hollace Cluny in Toronto.

I went to art.com and allposters.com and searched for "book cover posters" and found a ton. They are a little more expensive, but there's a lot of great choices, including old romance novel covers and a lot of retro, pop art covers.

-Kelsey
http://awencreative.com