Germano Facetti
Encyclopedia
Germano Facetti was an Italian graphic designer
who headed design at Penguin Books
from 1962 to 1971.
Born in Milan
he was arrested in 1943 for putting up anti-Fascist
posters. He was deported to Mauthausen
as a forced labourer, where he met the architect Ludovico Belgiojoso who later invited him to join his practice in Milan.
He moved to London in the early 1950s where he took evening classes in typography at the Central School of Art & Design.
By the late 1950s he was art director at Aldus Books and working as an interior designer, working briefly in Paris. It was his interior for the Poetry Bookshop in Soho
that inspired the director of Penguin, Allen Lane
, to invite him to join the as art director in 1960. Facetti was instrumental in redesigning the Penguin line, introducing phototypesetting
, the 'Marber grid
', offset-litho printing and photography to their paperback covers.
Facetti was also responsible for the black cover designs of the Penguin Classics series from 1963. He recruited a number of leading designers of the day, and one of his important achievements for Penguin was to impose a consistently high standard of cover design. After leaving Penguin in 1972 Facetti briefly worked for the publishing company Mondadori in his native Italy. Facetti collaborated with Chris Marker
on the 1962 short documentary film, La jetée
.
Graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
who headed design at Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
from 1962 to 1971.
Born in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
he was arrested in 1943 for putting up anti-Fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
posters. He was deported to Mauthausen
Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp
Mauthausen Concentration Camp grew to become a large group of Nazi concentration camps that was built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, roughly east of the city of Linz.Initially a single camp at Mauthausen, it expanded over time and by the summer of 1940, the...
as a forced labourer, where he met the architect Ludovico Belgiojoso who later invited him to join his practice in Milan.
He moved to London in the early 1950s where he took evening classes in typography at the Central School of Art & Design.
By the late 1950s he was art director at Aldus Books and working as an interior designer, working briefly in Paris. It was his interior for the Poetry Bookshop in Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
that inspired the director of Penguin, Allen Lane
Allen Lane
Sir Allen Lane was a British publisher who founded Penguin Books, bringing high quality paperback fiction and non-fiction to the mass market.-Early life and family:...
, to invite him to join the as art director in 1960. Facetti was instrumental in redesigning the Penguin line, introducing phototypesetting
Phototypesetting
Phototypesetting was a method of setting type, rendered obsolete with the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publishing software, that uses a photographic process to generate columns of type on a scroll of photographic paper...
, the 'Marber grid
Romek Marber
Romek Marber was a Polish freelance designer noted for his work with Penguin Books.Marber arrived in Britain in 1946; in 1961, impressed by Marber’s covers for The Economist, Germano Facetti commissioned Marber to design covers for Simeon Potter's Our Language and Language in the Modern World...
', offset-litho printing and photography to their paperback covers.
Facetti was also responsible for the black cover designs of the Penguin Classics series from 1963. He recruited a number of leading designers of the day, and one of his important achievements for Penguin was to impose a consistently high standard of cover design. After leaving Penguin in 1972 Facetti briefly worked for the publishing company Mondadori in his native Italy. Facetti collaborated with Chris Marker
Chris Marker
Chris Marker is a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and film essayist. His best known films are La jetée , A Grin Without a Cat , Sans Soleil and AK , an essay film on the Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa...
on the 1962 short documentary film, La jetée
La Jetée
La jetée is a 1962 French science fiction film by Chris Marker. It is also known in English as The Jetty or The Pier. Constructed almost entirely from still photos, it tells the story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel. The film runs for 28 minutes and is in black and white...
.
Publications
While at Penguin, Facetti wrote an account of his aims, published in 1967 and reprinted in 2007.Year of birth
Sources citing 1926 as Facetti's year of birth, not 1928:- http://www.designmuseum.org/design/penguin-books
- http://www.typophile.com/node/19230
- http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_20060416/ai_n16166320* http://www.designmuseum.org/design/penguin-books
- http://metarchivi.istoreto.it/biografie/p_bio_vis.asp?id=9