• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Graphic Design Portfolio
  • Illustration Portfolio
  • Blog
  • Contact

Tim Squires

Graphic Art, Design, Illustration and Animation

The Penrose Annual, Volume 50, 1956

January 29, 2018 By Tim Squires Leave a Comment

Sample of artwork from the Penrose Annual, Volume 50, 1956As an art and graphic design student I often pored over the Penrose Annual collection in the art school library. They were a treasure trove of printing techniques, typeface designs, advertising artwork and illustrations,  and I would be enthralled as I turned the pages.

I couldn’t believe my luck recently when I found a copy of the Golden Jubilee Penrose Annual in a second-hand book store, and I gladly parted with the $10 needed to call it my own!

The Penrose Annual was an acclaimed graphic arts journal that was published in London

The Penrose Annual was a printing and graphic arts journal that was published almost annually from 1895 to 1982. A London-based publication, it documented an incredible range of printing and design techniques, and remains today as beautiful source of design inspiration.

Steve Hare at Eye Magazine describes the Penrose Annual as a publication “by printers, for printers” that was “a one-off, in every sense”. Every edition was fastidiously approached as a unique creation. Steve Hare writes:

Its design and production needed to be planned with military precision; it was a complex and demanding publication that drew on, and demonstrated in its pages and inserts, every innovative technique, material and idea that had emerged in the course of the previous year. Sections to be bound in would arrive throughout the year from printers all over the world. There were tip-ins, fold-outs, different paper stocks, inks, artwork and processes to dissect and present, and advertising copy that more often than not needed binding in separately. And as a showcase not only for the printers themselves but the whole international industry, it had to be immaculately presented, printed and bound. A small staff spent the entire twelve months planning, compiling and producing it; and the printers, who were also its publishers, Percy Lund, Humphries & Co, would dovetail its production into their normal schedule . . . the industry would eagerly await its appearance and make investment decisions largely on what Penrose advised.

In the preface to the Jubilee edition, editor R.B. Fishenden also emphasises the team-work that went into each edition, and writes that “the shaping and fabrication of every volume is an adventure. Each is the outcome of a wonderful co-operative spirit . . . Our authors and our many friends bring fresh enthusiasm each year to help in giving the Annual its stamina and momentum”.

Examples of design and artwork from the Penrose Annual Jubilee edition

Article and illustration in the 1956 Jubilee on the Minerva typeface, which was designed by Reynolds Stone
Article and illustration on the Minerva typeface, which was designed by Reynolds Stone.
Samples of the typeface Minerva from the 1956 Golden Jubilee edition of the Penrose Annual.
Set samples of Minerva.
Minerva point sizes and varieties from the 1956 Golden Jubilee edition of the Penrose Annual.
Minerva point sizes and varieties.
Examples of advertising lettering and fonts from the 1956 Golden Jubilee edition of the Penrose Annual.
Examples of advertising lettering and fonts.
Detail from the cover of <em>Fortune</em> magazine, designed by W.H. Allner, from the 1956 Golden Jubilee edition of the Penrose Annual.
Detail from the cover of Fortune magazine, designed by W.H. Allner.
Examples of work by William Nicholson from the 1956 Golden Jubilee edition of the Penrose Annual.
Examples of work by William Nicholson.
Illustrations by William Nicholson from the 1956 Golden Jubilee edition of the Penrose Annual.
Illustrations by William Nicholson.
Posters and magazine covers from the 1956 Golden Jubilee edition of the Penrose Annual.
Various posters and magazine covers.
Posters for the British Post Office from the 1956 Golden Jubilee edition of the Penrose Annual.
Posters for the British Post Office.

Filed Under: Book reviews, Graphic design

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Footer

Graphic Design Portfolio

Illustration
Portfolio

Blog

Contact

Linkedin

Copyright © 2025, Tim Squires · All rights reserved