Germano Facetti

Who was Germano Facetti?

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, and participated in the seminal 1956 exhibition of pop art, This is Tomorrow, at the Whitechapel Gallery.

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.