The Judges

Although I disagree with producing a piece of work for a competition for the sole purpose of appealing to the judges preferences, the judges for the Penguin Random House competition have a connection to the company therefore have background knowledge of Penguin. This will hopefully mean that their judgements are made on what is the most appropriate design for the book rather than their personal preference.

John Hamilton 

- Specialised in illustration at Glasgow School of Art

- After graduating he became a junior book designer and has continued in this field of work 

- Joined Penguin in 1997 and is responsible for dropping the orange spines from the fiction book designs 

- For Penguin's Seventieth Birthday Campaign he invited (along with Jim Stoddart) seventy designers, artists and illustrators to create one cover each, designed within seven days. This shows that he has an interest in a number of different medias and therefore will hopefully not favour particular design styles. 

- Responsible for art directing Penguin's hardback imprints; Viking, Hamish Hamilton, Michael Joseph, Fig Tree and Penguin Ireland


Joanna Prior, (10 minutes with: Joanna Prior, managing director of Penguin General, theguardian.com)

This article is an interview with Prior where she is asked her opinion on the rise of e-books and how this has affected their methods, as well as going into detail about the #readwomen2014 campaign 

-  'Putting the right cover on a book is something that takes a lot of care and attention and, in my experience'

- ' I don't think we would tolerate a cover that marginalised a writer's work.'


Jim Stoddart

- From graduating Jim worked at a studio designing record and CD covers

- He then went on to working for Penguin as a cover designer

- Oversaw the redesign and rebranding of Penguin Classics/Modern Classics and Pelican books