Alternate Title(s)

• Process Work Yearbook – Penrose's Annual (Hare)
• Process Yearbook: Penrose's Pictorial Annual (COPAC)

Alternate Subtitle(s)

• An Illustrated Review of all Photo-Mechanical Processes (journal itself)

Start Date(s)

• 1895 (Ulrich and Kup)

End Date(s)

• 1982 (Archer)
• 1940 (Ulrich and Kup)

Editor(s)

• Gamble, William

City

• London, England

Circulation Count

• 10,000 (Hare)

Type of Content

Notes

• "Lund Humphries adoption of Monotype technology in 1906 influenced the production of Penrose: 'It soon became a policy to try out each of Monotype's new types in Penrose'” (Wikipedia, "Penrose")
• "The 1938 edition was notable for its text and binding designed by Jan Tschichold. Articles in issues from that era were authored by Beatrice Warde, Stanley Morison, Moholy-Nagy, Nikolaus Pevsner and other leading design writers" (Wikipedia, "Penrose")
• "Penrose went through a number of phases and sizes from its modest beginnings in 1895 as Process Work Yearbook – Penrose’s Annual, its original title. Lund Humphries printed it from 1897, and acquired the title and took over publication in 1906. It appeared each spring, with gaps only during the war years, and remained profitable well into the 1960s. In its heyday – which lasted several decades – the industry would eagerly await its appearance and make investment decisions largely on what Penrose advised. Each issue would sell around 10,000 copies" (Hare 15)
• "Penrose began in 1895 as 'Process Work Yearbook—Penrose’s Annual.' Lund Humphries printed the publication in 1897 and was responsible for its content since 1906, until selling Penrose to Northwood Publications Limited, part of the Thompson Corporation, in 1974. It was edited by William Gamble from 1895 to 1933" ("Penrose" MOP)
• Publisher's address: 109 Farringdon Rd. (Mitchell's 1913, 231)
• "Initially intended as a record of technological printing developments, it soon evolved to include essays on design and typography, photography, illustration, and the social and historical aspects of printing. . . . The content in The Penrose Annual was significant in bridging the gap between the technical aspects of printing and the artistic facets of design, and in uniting the disparate areas of the trade, Penrose remains of interest today because its influential articles--monographs on individuals, and articles on various matters of typesetting, illustrators and photographers, and histories of type--still have reference value" (Archer 329)
• Began as Process Work Yearbook – Penrose's Annual (1895-1901); then Process Yearbook: Penrose's Pictorial Annual (1895-1915); then Penrose's Annual (1915-1935); then Penrose Annual (1936-1971, 1975-1976); then Penrose Graphic Arts International Annual (1972-1974). It suspended publication 1917-1919 and 1941-1948 (COPAC, Hare 15)

Subject Categories

• Design
• Fine Art
• Paper & Stationery
• Printing History
• Printing Trade
• Typography

Sources that Discuss this Journal

• Archer 329; 47; 3:608; 15; 10; 4:3303, 3447; 231

Works Cited

• Archer, Caroline. “A Brief History of Type Historians.” The Graphic Design Reader, edited by Teal Triggs and Leslie Atzmon, Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019, pp. 323–31.