Romek Marber (25 November 1925 – 30 March 2020) was a Polish-born British graphic designer and academic known for his work illustrating the covers of

Biography

Marber was born in Turek, Poland on 25 November 1925. In 1939, he was deported to the Bochnia ghetto. In 1942, he was saved from being sent to the Belzec death camp by Sergeant Gerhard Kurzbach, the commander of the forced-labour workshop in Bochnia, credited with saving a large number of Jews during World War II and later recognized as a

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sa ...

. Marber arrived in Britain in 1946, where he was reunited with his father and brother. He applied for an education grant from The Committee for the Education of Poles in Great Britain, which had been established in the 1940s to support Polish servicemen and their families displaced by World War II), to study painting. However, he was advised by a member of the committee to apply for a course in

Commercial art Commercial art is the art of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. Commercial art uses a variety of platforms (magazines, websites, apps, television, etc.) for viewers with the intent of prom ...

, which he enrolled upon at St. Martin’s School of Art in the early 1950s, and is where he met his wife, Sheila Perry (1928–1989), also a graphic designer; the couple married in 1958. About his time as a student, Marber said that he “spent time drawing and I regarded it as an exercise in observation, a visual note book.” He attended the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It o ...

in 1953. During the late 1950s, Marber designed covers for ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...

'' magazine. He stated that “the newsprint paper and the coarseness of the halftone printed by letterpress f the Economistsuited the boldness of my work… Black with red is simple and dramatic.” When describing the process of designing the covers, Marber recalled the prolonged wait for editorial decisions to be made, and enjoying the speed of the illustration process. 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''. For the cover of ''Our Language'', Marber recalls that he was “trying to convey that the language is English and evolving.”

The 'Marber Grid'

Soon after these initial designs, Germano Facetti (art director at Penguin from 1960 to 1972) asked Marber to submit a proposal for a new cover approach for the Penguin Crime series. He was asked to do twenty titles in four months between June and October. Marber chose to retain the green colour for the series, though he used a 'fresher' shade, and kept the horizontal banding of the previous

Edward Young Edward Young (c. 3 July 1683 – 5 April 1765) was an English poet, best remembered for ''Night-Thoughts'', a series of philosophical writings in blank verse, reflecting his state of mind following several bereavements. It was one of the mos ...

designs. The image on Marber's covers occupies just over two-thirds of the space, while the title section at the top is divided into three bands carrying colophon/series name/price, the title and the author's name, with the type ranged left. The design was seen as so successful that Facetti adopted it, essentially unchanged, for both the blue Pelican and orange literature covers.

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Dorothy L. Sayers Dorothy Leigh Sayers (; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages. She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between th ...

books by adding a small white figure, which he included in different postures on each cover. Marber became tired of designing crime fiction book covers. After taking a hiatus for a few years, he was asked to design the covers for six Angus Wilson novels. By then, Penguin Books had a new 'house style', where the 'Penguin' logo had to be placed in the top right hand corner of the cover.

Retrospective Exhibition: Graphics

In 2013, The Minories, Colchester exhibited a retrospective of some of the graphic work designed by Marber for

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...

'', ''

New Society ''New Society'' was a weekly magazine of social inquiry and social and cultural comment, published in the United Kingdom from 1962 to 1988. It drew on the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, psychology, human geography, social history and so ...

'', ''

Town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

'' and ''

Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

'' magazines, Nicholson’s London Guides, BBC Television,

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...

, the London Planetarium and others. It included enlarged versions of many of his book cover designs along with drawings and sketches documenting the Marber Grid, original spreads from magazines and original books. The exhibition was later shown at the

University of Brighton The University of Brighton is a public university based on four campuses in Brighton and Eastbourne on the south coast of England. Its roots can be traced back to 1858 when the Brighton School of Art was opened in the Royal Pavilion. It achiev ...

and the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow.

Personal life

Marber lived in Stisted, outside of

Braintree, Essex Braintree is a town and former civil parish in Essex, England. The principal settlement of Braintree District, it is located northeast of Chelmsford and west of Colchester. According to the 2011 Census, the town had a population of 41,634, ...

and died there on March 30, 2020. He is survived by his long term partner, graphic designer Orna Frommer Dawson. He lost his belief in God as a teenager.

Publications

In 2010, Marber published an autobiography of his experiences during World War Two: ''No Return: Journeys in the Holocaust'' (Richard Hollis; 1st edition, 2010).

References

External links

Website documenting Romek Marber's work and life, created by his partner Orna Frommer Dawson and Geoff Windram
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marber, Romek 1925 births 2020 deaths 20th-century Polish male artists Polish graphic designers Polish emigrants to the United Kingdom Alumni of the Royal College of Art Alumni of Saint Martin's School of Art 20th-century Polish Jews British graphic designers