Peter Campbell was the resident designer and art critic for the London Review of Books from its creation in 1979 until his death in 2011. Campbell was born in Wellington, New Zealand and apprenticed as a typographer at the Wingfield Press. His apprenticeship was under the poet and publisher Denis Glover who taught him that paper, typography, binding and illustration were as intrinsic to a published book as literary quality. This was a principle that Campbell would apply to all of his literary design work. He moved to London in 1960 and worked at the BBC editing publications for major television series such as Kenneth Clark's Civilisation and David Attenborough's Life on Earth. In 1976 he became a freelance designer and worked predominantly on exhibition catalogues and magazines including The Musical Times and New Left Review. In 1979 he was invited to design the newly launched London Review of Books. The early covers were black and white photographs but in 1993 the editor, Mary Kay Wilmers, commissioned him to create original cover illustrations. He continued to create these illustrations every fortnight until his death. The images proved so popular with readers that they were also published as calendars. This is one of a group of fifteen cover illustrations acquired by the museum. They give us an insight into Peter Campbell's design process, producing a coherent style with arresting images, while also allowing the neccesary space for cover typography.