Funny how life works, after I posted Paul Rand’s business card I found this similarly minimal letterhead belonging to another genius.

Letterheady is a blog of old letterhead examples, so if you’ve ever wondered what Adolf Hitler’s letterhead looked like, wonder no more:

…let’s hope he was writing with good news. In the interests of fairness here’s Winston Churchill’s:

…and to complete the Paul Rand circle of logic, here’s an old IBM one:

…even if I do prefer Clive Sinclair’s:

An interesting site and the collection is growing. Remember, you spell stationery with an e when you mean envelopes.

Penguin are reissuing George Orwell’s 1984 (and Animal Farm) with a Shephard Fairey ‘Obey’ cover. Seems like a natural fit and is sure to boost sales, but while its all very nice, it seems only the tiniest little bit of a shame to spread this potentially-ubiquitous style across such a visionary title, but then again, perhaps that’s appropriate. Still, in my book, Led Zeppelin, George Orwell and Barack Obama need not be branded with the same identity…

Anyway, all this led me to wonder how many covers 1984 has actually had, and, well, it has had a lot:

Recurring themes are big typography, austere gentlemen and the all seeing eye. Some are really very nice, some are not. Click for a look at more of them, just a shame you can’t see them closer up on LibraryThing. Has anyone seen any other good ones? What would you do given the opportunity to design such a famous book cover…?

I love that last one…!