penguin

There are still few enough good corporate blogs in the UK that it's worth pointing them out when they hove into view. So all hail the Penguin books blog (and associated flickr stream). Simple. No frills. But oozes Penguin-ness and lets you have a little peek behind the publishing curtain. They're also doing Penguin Podcasts (and they're already up to no37, I've obviously not been paying attention) which again is a simple, smart use of all the resources they have at their disposal.

You could make a convincing case that Penguin are the smartest branding/product business around at the moment. (And that they're have had the longest history of doing so, they've been innovating since 1935)

They're doing all sorts of interesting stuff. Much of it is purely the crafty, entertaining re-purposing and repackaging of existing content. There are The Designer Classics, the My Penguin idea and the Penguin 60s were innovative so long ago that Suck wrote about them. Then with new works there are little bits of genius like The Glass Books Of The Dream Eaters. And I particularly like the transparency and openness of this post about Puffin books. (Those that remember Puffin, I'd encourage you to take part, I will, when I've thought of something to say.)

I wish Harper Collins had been this smart when I did egg, bacon, chips and beans.

Comments

[beeker]

gosh, the little wooden farmer and stig of the dump photos on flickr just brought tears of nostalgia to my eyes. beautiful stuff.

[steve kulp]

My favorite Penguin project of the last few years is the Great Ideas series. It's a smart, well designed collection, both aesthetically and in their choice of titles. Orwell, Darwin, Ruskin, Marx...it gets no better.

http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/articles/greatideas/

[jez]

During the summer I spotted this rather lovely Penguin hoarding

http://sledgeblog.typepad.com/weblog/2006/09/penguin_hoardin.html