The independent paperback publisher Sun Books was founded in 1965 by Geoffrey Dutton, Max Harris and Brian Stonier who had left Penguin Australia frustrated by their English employer’s lack of commitment to local content. Pooling their respective talents, the three men aspired to deliver quality paperbacks for the sophisticated Australian reader. A young Brian Sadgrove was appointed as Sun Book’s inaugural designer, charged with developing a distinctive, identifiable Australian identity for the fledgling imprint. His commitment to simplicity and modernity is reflected in the sans serif typography, restrained colour palette and bold Sun Book logo, an abstraction of the artist Lawrence Daws’ sketches of Aboriginal cave paintings.

Almost 340 Sun titles were produced from the mid-1960s until it became the paperback imprint for Macmillan in 1982/83, covering diverse and occasionally controversial subject ranging from current affairs, politics, literature to sport and economics. Alongside Brian Sadgrove, Sun Books also commissioned many other significant local designers and illustrators including Robert Rosetzky, Ken Cato and Terry Hibberd, David Hornblow and Guy Mirabella.

The archive of Sun Books displayed here was sourced from The State Library of Victoria, Monash University Rare Books and the personal collections of Guy Mirabella, Warren Taylor and Dominic Hofstede.