With the 2nd years Penguin Book Cover project coming to a close this week, it was a real treat for 23 lucky students who met and had a critique with cover designer and typographer, David Pearson!

David has produced covers for numerous series of Penguin books as an in-house designer at Penguin Books, and then set up his own studio in August 2007 :

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Having engrossed themselves in the history of Penguin Books through CVP and research for their book cover designs, the students felt that it was really great to speak to someone who has such passion for the subject;

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Sam Weston and Ash Watkins thought David’s visit was ‘very insightful. He took his own time out to benefit us, was very interested and excited about all of our designs,’ with Lucy Perkins adding that ‘he boosted our confidence and his positivity made me want to bring out the best in my work.’

Tom Matthews, Jack Kingham and Helen Finlinson were all inspired ‘to see a renowned designer still very much in love with design’, and that ‘it wasn’t just a job for him’.

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Sunjay Morar found David to be ‘an inspirational person always seeing the positives in our work’ and Dave Morris agreed, loving the ‘enthusiasm he had about everything we showed him.’

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Tom Bishop and Amber Hadley were grateful to David for being ‘honest about the industry’ with Danielle Cowell agreeing that she ‘enjoyed David’s stories, and is now very excited for getting into the design world after Uni’.

Chris Jellinek and James Robins agreed that it was inspirational to see that ‘design heroes are still nice, down-to-earth people’.

Overall, everyone agreed it was a great opportunity to talk to David Pearson and that he is a lovely man. Hopefully the judges at Penguin will be as enthusiastic about our work and Lincoln will bring home the Penguin Book Design Award for the first time. No pressure, 2nd years!

Tasha.