The Process Work Yearbook--Penrose's Annual

Subtitle: “An Illustrated Review of all Photo-Mechanical Processes”

Alternate Title(s)

  • Process Yearbook: Penrose’s Pictorial Annual (Hare)
  • The Process Year Book--Penrose’s Annual (journal itself)

Alternate Subtitle(s)

  • Review of the Graphic Arts (COPAC)

Start Date(s)

  • 1895 (Ulrich and Kup)

End Date(s)

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

Editor(s)

City

  • London, England (journal itself)

Circulation Count

  • 10,000 (Hare)

Type of Content

  • "Summary articles touching upon every phase of printing. The modern note is stressed. Special feature: specimens of color printing and advertising" (Ulrich p. 47)
  • "Penrose's content was significant in bridging technical aspects of printing and artistic aspects of design. According to St. Bride librarian Nigel Roche, 'Its importance then was largely as a link between disparate areas of the trade. Its importance today is in the seminal articles that it published that still have reference value: monographs on individuals; articles on various matters of typesetting'" (Wikipedia, "Penrose")

Notes

  • "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 Blog)
  • "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 p. 15)
  • "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 p. 329)
  • "Lund Humphries's 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")
  • The name of this journal continued to change slightly over time, ending up as The Penrose Graphic Arts International Annual in 1972 (Waterloo Online)
  • Publisher's address (A. W. Penrose, in 1898): 8 and 8A Upper Baker St., London (journal itself)
  • Publisher's address (Lund Humphries, in 1897): Amen Corner, Paternoster Row, London

Subject Categories

Sources that Discuss this Journal

  • Archer p. 329
  • COPAC
  • Hare p. 15
  • Mitchell’s (1913) p. 231
  • NSTC
  • "The Penrose Annual"
  • Stewart vol. 3, p. 608
  • Titus vol. 4, p. 3303, 3447
  • "Trade and Literary Gossip" p. 10
  • Ulrich and Kup p. 47
  • Waterloo (online)
  • Wikipedia, "Penrose"

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.
  • COPAC: Consortium of Online Public Access Catalogues. Library Hub Discover, JISC.
  • Hare, Steve. "By Printers, for Printers." Eye, vol. 60, Summer 2006, p. 15.
  • Mitchell’s Newspaper Press Directory and Advertiser’s Guide. C. Mitchell, 1913.
  • NSTC (Nineteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue), in C19: The Nineteenth-Century Index, Chadwyck-Heaney, 2020. ProQuest.
  • "The Penrose Annual." Museum of Printing Blog, designed and built by Cliff Garber.
  • Stewart, James D., editor. British Union-Catalogue of Periodicals. 4 vols. Butterworths, 1968.
  • Titus, Edna Brown. Union List of Serials in Libraries of the United States and Canada. 5 vols. H.W. Wilson, 1965.
  • "Trade and Literary Gossip." The Bookseller: A Newspaper of British and Foreign Literature, 17 Jan. 1902, p. 10. Google Books.
  • Ulrich, Carolyn F., and Karl Kup. Books and Printing: A Selected List of Periodicals, 1800-1942. W. E. Rudge, 1943.
  • The Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals: 1800-1900, edited by John S. North. North Waterloo Academic Press, 2009.
  • Wikipedia contributors. "The Penrose Annual." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 19 Oct. 2018.
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