Marber grid

Romek Marber created a grid system in 1961 which allowed him to compose the covers for crime & mystery books published by Penguin (see figure 1).  When composing the grid Marber considered the need for the introduction of illustrations onto the covers of the books resulting in the main information such as publisher, author and title being confided to 1/3 of the cover allowing space for the illustration to capture the audiences attention. This allowed Marber to maintain Penguins long standing image of typographic covers whilst introducing a more modern feature to the books through the incorporation of illustrations and the use of a green hue which was a forward thinking, modern aspect at the time of publication in 1961 but still allowed Marber to maintain Penguins classical image due to the use of typography at the top of the covers. Consequently this grid system proved to be very successful with the Marber grid being adapted and used by many other designers allowing it to become one of the most admired and well known grid systems since its use in 1961. 

Figure 1