Aimed at aspiring designers and illustrators with less than a year of industry experience, the latest brief pays homage to Penguin’s founding design principles while offering a unique opportunity to shape the future of book cover design.
To celebrate 90 years of Penguin, the publisher’s annual Cover Design Award has launched a special one-off brief for emerging UK designers and illustrators. This year’s competition focuses on reimagining a new design system for Penguin’s paperback books, embracing the core principles that have defined the brand for nearly a century—bold, distinctive, and mass-market—while reflecting the diversity of contemporary publishing.
The competition is open to individuals over the age of 18, including students and those with less than one year’s experience in paid creative roles, whether in-house or freelance.
The Design Challenge
Entrants must create a design system that can be consistently applied across three book covers, selected from the following titles:
- A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
- The Mysterious Affair at Styles – Agatha Christie
- Lady Chatterley’s Lover – DH Lawrence
- Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
- Beloved – Toni Morrison
- Rachel’s Holiday – Marian Keyes
- Killing Floor – Lee Child
- Fifty Shades of Grey – EL James
- Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow – Gabrielle Zevin
Unlike designing individual covers with unique styles, the goal is to develop a system that works across multiple genres and time periods, much like Edward Young’s ‘tri-band’ system, which was first introduced on Penguin’s paperback editions in 1935. The deadline for submissions is January 30th.
A Legacy of Innovative Design
Penguin’s Cover Design Award has been instrumental in nurturing new talent in publishing, offering real-world cover design briefs written by the publisher’s art directors. Over its 19-year history, the award has helped launch the careers of designers, illustrators, and art directors, including Harry Woodgate (Grandad’s Camper), Jack Smyth (Designer of the Year at the 2024 British Book Awards), Pete Adlington (Faber & Faber’s art director), and Fruzsina Czech (designer of Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman).
This year’s brief pays tribute to Penguin’s original ten paperback editions, a landmark moment in publishing history that introduced a groundbreaking approach to book cover design. Allen Lane, Penguin’s founder, and Edward Young, the company’s first designer, established a system based on three guiding principles:
- Bold: Penguin’s books pushed the boundaries of graphic design, challenging traditional decorative and illustrative styles in favor of a modern, striking aesthetic.
- Distinctive: The strong, type-forward covers, combined with a color-coded genre system, made Penguin books instantly recognizable and contributed to the publisher’s early success, selling three million copies in its first year.
- Mass-market: Designed to be affordable and widely available, Penguin paperbacks originally cost just sixpence—the same price as a pack of cigarettes in 1935. The flexible design system enabled mass production while maintaining visual unity across different genres, surviving even the paper and ink rationing of World War II.
Looking to the Future
Richard Bravery, art director at Penguin General, describes this year’s challenge as a holistic exploration of Penguin’s brand and publishing identity. Rather than focusing on a single title, entrants will need to consider how their design system can work across Penguin’s extensive catalog.
Rebecca Sinclair, chief brand officer at Penguin Books, reflects on the significance of this year’s award:
“Design has been fundamental to Penguin since the launch of our first paperbacks. The bold, now-iconic design system and innovative use of color have helped shape some of the most recognizable book covers in history. As we celebrate our 90th anniversary, this is a moment to honor that heritage while embracing the future of book design. We’re eager to see the fresh ideas that this next generation of designers will bring.”
For full competition details and submission guidelines, visit Penguin’s official website.
