My Top Penguin Style Clothing Catalogue Issues

On the first Wednesday of every month on Club Penguin, a new clothing catalogue is released at the Clothes Shop.

It helps all the penguins of the Island discover new and exciting outfits that fit the respective month. It allows more diversity and creativity to the way a penguin can express themselves in game. Most items in the catalogues nowadays are for members, with only 1 or 2 pages introducing items for free accounts.

Club Penguin scrapped the idea of using SWFs for the catalogues when the July 2015 issue was launched, switching to an image-based catalogue. This allows less bandwidth to be used in the game to accommodate a faster loading speed.

However, this had a negative response in the community. Many penguins were upset because this meant that the traditional ‘secret items’ feature was removed, meaning the monthly hidden Blue, Red and Golden Viking helmets now became unavailable through their original means and made the catalogue a lot more bland, removing the element of surprise and excitement every month.

However, the Penguin Style catalogues are still intrinsically important to the game to this day. Which is why today, I would like to count down my top favourite issues of the Penguin Style clothing catalogues, and why! Let us begin.

#1 – October 2006 Penguin Style

Let’s start our journey off way back in October 2006. October 2006 in Club Penguin brought back the Halloween party that premiered for the first time the prior year. So, for this special catalogue, Club Penguin featured Halloween-related costumes and accessories.

 

This particular issue has a wacky clown penguin on the front cover, with the classic blurred background and old font. I like this style because it represents the old era of Club Penguin, especially with the outdated penguin illustrations.

This was the first time the Clown costume was seen on the Island, imagine how exciting it must’ve been walking into the Clothes Shop and seeing it for the first time.

#2 – August 2007 Penguin Style

My second pick is one that I experienced first-hand, so I can tell you my personal encounter with it. It is the August 2007 Penguin Style. In August 2007, I was heavily addicted to Club Penguin. I had been playing the game for roughly 5 months now, and I gave up many hours of my day to play Club Penguin, watch videos, explore blogs, and really indulge myself in the game. Sadly, I isolated myself a lot from outside activities during this period. As a lonely 7-year-old at the time, it was an escape for me.

When I first saw this catalogue, it thrilled me. From the design on the front page to the exciting new items within, I was hooked on surfing through this catalogue. What I liked especially about this edition, being a non-member at the time, were the backgrounds. August 2007 is when Camp Penguin was out, so the camping and tent related backgrounds were really fitting. Needless to say, I purchased them all!

It seemed at the time Club Penguin was experimenting a bit with lines and the style that penguins were drawn in, because the fisherman on the front cover seemed to be drawn differently to the other issues that were released prior to this catalogue.

#3 – July 2008 Penguin Style

Ah, summer 2008. ‘Twas a great time. I has no plans to go away for the summer that year, so I had the whole six weeks to spend at my computer, on Club Penguin! I remember this year very well, it is when Club Penguin music videos introduced me to the music taste I still hold close today, and made me familiar with bands such as Paramore, Fall out Boy, Linkin Park, etc. Watching the CPMVs and playing the game was a good pastime of mine.

This catalogue is familiar to me, because it is the second time I was able to spend my coins and buy some member clothes! Yes, the first time I had membership was back in March of that same year, and it expired in April. I did not renew it again until July, so it was perfect that this catalogue came out at that time. I bought every single item in the catalogue, and, if I were to renew my membership today, I would be able to access them all.

During this time, I was also really into drawing… on MS Paint. So I drew a few characters from this Penguin Style issue, and I had fun doing so. I could probably dig some up – but – I’ll spare you the embarrassment.

From the obvious Elvis rip-off to the cowboy (that reminds me of the song ‘Cowboys from Hell’ by Pantera), this catalogue was a hit. I did dress up as an acoustic-guitar-playing cowboy for the rest of that year I think.

 

Yes, this catalogue had a lot of good outfits and clothes in it. I’ll leave a link at the bottom of this post to the live-SWFs of all these catalogues so you can browse through them and have a look at the clothes whilst you read to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.

#4 – November 2012 Penguin Herbert Style

Mwahahaha! November 2012… OPERATION: BLACKOUT! If you can remember, November 2012 is when Herbert P. Bear took over the Island of Club Penguin and plastered his hairy polar bear face all over our treasured catalogues and monuments. So it was only fitting that for the November Penguin Style, he renamed it to HERBERT Style and made us aware of his glorious image.

I had to include this because it is the only time that Club Penguin named their catalogue something different, it really stands out. How could I not mention this at least once? Just look at Herbert standing there, with his aviators and bling-y gold chain necklace. Fabulous!

I don’t just like this catalogue for Herbert though, the amount of detail that was put in, even changing the skies in the background to mimic the current state of the Island – with grey clouds and a grim and murky feel – really made it spectacular and appreciated.

Operation: Blackout was by far Club Penguin’s best and most successful ‘operation’, with 1.8 million players logging to try and defeat Herbert, as the Club Penguin blog states. Or should I say, Club Hebert!

 

Did you know that Operation Blackout was actually the result of someone accidentally seeing some scribbles on the office whiteboard and publishing it online? Eek.

That wraps it up for my countdown on my top Penguin Style clothing catalogue designs. Which catalogue is your favourite?

Tell me down in the comments, I’ll be sure to read every one of your suggestions.

If you would like to view the SWFs for every clothing catalogue that I mentioned here, see below:

October 2006
August 2007
July 2008
November 2012

Thanks for reading everyone. I’ll see you soon.

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