Giuliana Camerino dies at 89

I love pretty much any Roberta di Camerino product. My appreciation grew even stronger while reading the obituary of its founder, Giuliana Camerino, and I learned several endearing things about her and the company she founded. For example, she got the name "Roberta" from a film with fred Astaire and Irene Dunne and the brass hardware on her bags was originally made by the same craftsmen that made the metal fittings on the gondolas of Venice. How romantic!

Penguin Publishing's Color Code

Arranging books according to color has become quite popular and looks great. However, it is a method that can result in placing paleontology next to poetry and novels next to non-fiction, a troubling thought indeed! That's why I adore the color-coding system that Penguin has been using 1935, wherein each genre is assigned a color and the spine (and sometimes the cover) of works within that genre are printed in the designated color. Just think of how delicious a shelf of candy-colored, color-coded Penguins would look between shelves of National Geographics with their lemon drop spines, yum!
The Penguin code is as follows:
Red = Drama
Orange = Fiction
Yellow = Miscellaneous
Green = Crime Fiction
Dark Blue = Autobiographies
Purple = Essays
Cerise = Travel and Adventure
Grey = World Affairs
For more info check out: Phil Baines' book, Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005
(photo from Eifion on Flickr)