Book Covers - Romek Marber Timeline

1925 - Born in Poland

1939 - Deported to Bochina Ghetto 

1942 - Saved from a death camp by Sergeant Kur Zbach

1946 - Arrived in Britain after WW2, working at a London clothing factory.

1947 - Applied for an education grant, "The committee for the education of the Poles in Great Britain"

1950 - Studied at St Martins

1953 - Studied at Royal College of Art

1961 - After seeing Marber's designs for covers of The Economist. Facetti commissioned him to design covers for "Our language and language in the modern world".

1962- 65 - Facetti asked Marber to submit a proposal for a new cover approach for the Penguin Crime series. He was asked to do twenty titles in four months. Marber chose to retain the green colour for the series, he also kept the horizontal banding The image on Marber's covers occupies just over two-thirds of the space, while the title section at the top is divided into three bands carrying colophon, series, name, price, the title and the author's name, with the type ranged left.

1962 - Contacted Spencer to give him credit within an article for the grid design. 

1963 - Layout became standard for the entire range of penguin paperbacks.

1964 - Worked for The Observer as the magazine's first art director.

1966-  Worked as a design consultant for The Observer, Wire Fencing Company and Norvic

1967 - Designed New Society photomontage

1989 - Retired as a designer and became a Professor Emiterus of Middlesex University. 

2010 - Released his autobiography, "No Return: Journeys in the Holocaust".

2013 - The Minories, Colchester exhibited a retrospective of graphic work designed by Marber for Penguin books, The Economist, New Society and others. The exhibition went on to be shown at the University of Brighton and the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow.

Book Covers - Romek Marber Grid

Book Cover Development

Pantone Booklet - Klein Blue

Klein Blue was a hue created by Yves Klein; a frenchman who was not only an artist but an inventor and showman too. The colour was based upon the use of Ultramarine, when experimenting with pigments and polymers, Klein created a colour that when suspended in synthetic resin, produced an extremely high pigment. It was eventually officially registered in 1957. The colour was first displayed at an exhibition named ‘The Blue revolution’, where Klein used naked models as live paintbrushes, encapsulating movement and the human body within an art piece. He also displayed the colours has huge hanging monochromatic paintings, based on his previous idea of ‘The Void’. The vastness of the colour across the painting, was done in a way which removed people out of reality and acted as a source of meditation and relaxation, it took people elsewhere within their minds. Klein’s main aim was to capture a hue of blue that would hold an entire experience when looked at. and each painting created different atmospheres and emotions, as well as each being sold for varying prices. Klein described his colour as ‘a blue in itself, disengaged by all functional justification.’ He wanted both the colour and paintings to have a tangible and visible nature of the sky and sea, to reach out to all five senses. It became known as International Klein Blue (IKB), and during the 1990s it became hugely popular, within design, it was said that ‘it had replaced red as a signal colour’.

Designed by Sagmeister, the contemporary rebrand of The Jewish Museum in New York. The colour was inspired by Tekhelet dye mentioned within the Hebrew Bible, and a reference to the Israeli flag and Jewish culture and religion. 

Design for Generation Press by Studio Build, the colour used has a resemblance to Klein Blue. The contrast against the red is similar to two points work creating a bold statment using two very basic colours.

Found upon Trendlist, this is a poster designed by Jean Ducret. Klein Blue has been used throughout the whole piece. Hinting to Klein’s own monochrome paintings, creating a single piece creating different emotions and feelings.

Designed by Studio Dumbar for OVG Real Estate, Visual Identity. The colours chosen read Europe, taken from the European Flag. But the design also emits passion, which was the drive behind Yves Klein production of IKB.

Architecture Magazine designed by TwoPoints, uses a contrast of Klein blue and red. This issue was about preservation therefore the choice of colours could represent stripping back to basics using primary colours.

This was designed again by Studio Build, for a conference branding for Sex, Drugs and Helvetica. The colour choice relates to Klein’s controversial use of Klein Blue, using women as paintbrushes, it is used again herein a similar context.

Created by Vallée Duhamel Studio, for Google and Android. The shade of blue could be a reference to the colours used within the google logo and to contrast against the shade of pink. Making a gender neutral brand for the product.

Pantone Booklet - Final Pantone Booklet

Objectivity vs Subjectivity - The Debate

Van Toorn - Believes the designer should intervene.
- Thought the designer should take a more political and artistic approach.
- Designers should retain their sense of personality within design.
- Believes the design world should become more daring.
- Designers should put more of themselves into their work.
- Believes it isn't a designer's job to please business.
- Designers should experiment more within design as fine artists do.
- Believes there is never just one possible solution.
- Design is a socio-cultural engagement


Wim Crouwel - Believes that designer should be a neutral character through which communication is passed through.
- Saw the designer as an engineer.
- Believes that designers cannot be both a graphic designer and visual artist.
- Believes that graphic design is a discipline that should translate a message in an aesthetic and straight forward way without personal interpretation.
- Thinks that today their is a certain personal expressionism pushing design and asks the question is this a danger for graphic design?

Study Task 03 - Objective to Subjective

This study task shows how something objective, such as black letter can be turned into something subjective, into a contemporary way finding system for a hospital that is dissimilar to existing systems.

Inspiration was taken from contemporary designers David Rudnick, who use black letter within modern day design pieces such as typography, cd and vinyl records and posters. They have taken the characteristics of black letter to produce a more modern day approach. 

Characteristics of black letter include;
- Tall, narrow letters
- Letters formed by sharp, straight, angular lines.
- Ascenders are vertical and often end in sharp finials.

After layering and composing the lines of stroke letter in different ways, they began to resemble abstract from of pictograms and signs that could then be used within a sign system.

Above and below are the final pictograms, to be placed within a way finding system of a hospital.