Pound the Pavement #40: The case of the green covers: Penguin crime
Pound the Pavement #40: The case of the green covers: Penguin crime
Josh MacPhee
Art & Culture / Partner Publisher
In 1962, Penguin Books carried out an unprecedented experiment in Anglophone paperback book cover design. Deploying a new design grid created by Romek Marber, they released a flood of crime and mystery novels wrapped in simple, efficient, green and black covers. An unheralded peak of late-Modernist design, many of these covers still stand out today as some of the most interesting and compelling ever created for Penguin—or any press!
This publication, in which Josh MacPhee tells the history of this design experiment, includes nearly 70 cover reproductions as well as a bibliography and bios of key designers. In addition, it features a 2-sided poster with a giant grids of 128 book covers.
The content draws on earlier research MacPhee had done on the Penguin Crime series for his Judging Books By Their Covers blog post series on Justseeds.
Product Details
Published: December 2025
Format: 4-color risograph printed publication
Size: 5.25 x 8.25 in
Page count: 64
OBI strip (Poster)
Format: 2-sided 4-color riso printed poster
Size: 11 x 17 in
First printing of 350 copies
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Josh MacPhee is a designer, artist, and archivist. He is a founding member of both the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative and Interference Archive, a public collection of cultural materials produced by social movements based in Brooklyn, NY. MacPhee is the author and editor of numerous publications, including Strike While the Needle is Hot: A Discography of Workers’ Militancy, An Encyclopedia of Political Record Labels, and Graphic Liberation: Image Making and Political Movements. He has organized the Celebrate People's History poster series since 1998 and has contributed to the art and culture of the campaigns of dozens of community organizations and unions.
