The Annual Book Design Awards 2012

"Never judge a book by it's cover". We've all heard that proverb so many times we probably mutter it while we sleep. And yet we're all guilty of doing it. It's in our nature, shit cover = shit book. If something doesn't visually please us we don't buy, hence why magazines are slaves to photoshop.

Of course we're all wrong, just because the cover is crap doesn't mean it isn't a good book. My boss has looked back on a few books of ours and thought what were we thinking? But maybe the publisher was battling it out with the cover designer, or the sales and marketing team didn't like it, or it was decided on without any proper consultation with the rest of the team due to time constraints or avoiding conflict. And of course design is constantly moving through trends (you can always tell a book published in the 80's compared to now). And there are trends according to genre as well. Self-help books have the usual pebbles stacked on top of one another, lots of water, etc. When we were discussing our Mindfulness For Life cover we were up in arms that the designer had chosen more water plus a bridge. But the truth is if we didn't have these elements it wouldn't be an authentic self-help book. People who are looking for a self-help book expect those elements to be there and if they're not then it misses the mark. So we succumbed to the water and actually love the cover now!

Covers are such a contentious choice. About once a month our boss calls us into her office and shows us a range of covers sent by the designer. Sometimes we agree with each other, sometimes we don't. Some of us love the background image, hate the font, or feel so-so about the colour. Some books have even had to be rescheduled because of cover art issues. Some people argue that it's not the cover but the spine that is the most important; for in a book shop most non-fiction books are placed spine out with only a select few being placed flat on their paper backs.

This year at the Annual Book Design Awards held by the APA there were many beautiful covers entered and some not so beautiful. But as another proverb famously states: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"! Here is what Bookseller + Publisher reported of the winners...

‘Publishers and designers need to take more chances’ was the message from the judges at this year’s APA Book Design Awards, held at the Powerhouse Museum on 17 May as part of the Sydney Writers’ Festival. ‘Shelves are full of books that look like each other and publishers are understandably cautious in approving edgy or radically different designs. But in order to capture public attention and move forward as an industry we need to be bold and courageous, to take leaps of creative faith and continue to push the envelope as far as it will go,’ the judges said.

After a four-year winning streak from Murdoch Books, Powerhouse Publishing picked up the Best Designed Book of the Year award for the exhibition catalogue Love Lace: Powerhouse Museum International Lace Award, designed by Sydney-based Dutch-European designers Toko. ‘[This] was the book that ultimately stood out from all the others,’ said the judges. ‘It is a great package all round—tactile and tasteful. The cover is excellent and the foldout poster works beautifully. The choice of using two different paper stocks, something rarely seen, has come off and the decision to use only one colour in some sections is elegant. The strong colours are a great way to deal with this feminie subject.’



The Young Designer of the Year award went to Hannah Robinson for her work on And Red Galoshes (Hardie Grant Egmont), The Elegant Art of Falling Apart (Hachette Australia), Wide Open Road (ABC Books) and Chasing Odysseus (Pantera Press)—‘all four books from different genres and each targeting different audiences’. The judges commended Robinson’s ‘willingness to try different things and confidence in their execution’.

The Best Designed Cover of the Year award went to The Art of Pasta (Penguin), designed by Daniel New, which the judges described as ‘very much an anti-celebrity cookbook ... aiming for elegance not edginess or gloss’. The judges praised the ‘clean crisp’ combination of watercolour and illustration.

The Best Designed Children’s Cover of the Year award went to Text designer WH Chong for the distinctive upside-down cover of August. ‘This cover is so clever and plays with the idea of what a book is,’ said the judges. ‘It plays with the traditions of where things should be and even includes a hand drawn barcode.’ They also observed that ‘the illustration itself places the novel in the YA category without alienating potential adult readers’.

Other awards presented on the night were:

Best Designed Fiction Book Love in the Years of Lunacy (Mandy Sayer, A&U), designed by Emily O'Neill The judges commended the book’s ‘elegant, classic cover appropriate for its genre’ and its ‘great romantic choice of type’.

Best Designed Nonfiction Book Hiroshima Nagasaki (Paul Ham, HarperCollins), designed by Matt Stanton and HarperCollins Design Studio This book impressed the judges with its ‘unusual approach in its genre’. ‘The whole package is tactile—particularly the embedded sticker on the cover—and steps away from where you would expect such a serious book to be pitched, without minimising the subject.’

Best Designed Literary Fiction Book Foal's Bread (Gillian Mears, A&U), designed by Sandy Cull, gogoGinko, and Yolande Gray The judges thought this book was a stand-out from the start. ‘The image of the horse is amazing, alive and moving. Stunning. The whole book is tactile—the jacket cover and back cover is outstanding.’

Best Designed General Illustrated Book The Flight Attendant's Shoe (Prudence Black, NewSouth), designed by Di Quick ‘A classy production and the rhythm of the design in the different parts makes the book look very interesting,’ said the judges.

Best Designed Specialist Illustrated Book Love Lace: Powerhouse Museum International Lace Award (Powerhouse Publishing), designed by Toko

Best Designed Children's Fiction Book Alaska (Sue Saliba, Penguin), designed by Allison Colpoys)

Best Designed Children's Nonfiction Book Drawing Life for Kids: My Art Journal (Queensland Art Gallery), designed by Amy Moore and Sally Nall

Best Designed Children's Picture Book Ben & Duck (Sara Acton, Scholastic), designed by Nicole Stofberg

Best Designed Children's Series Star League 1: Lights, Camera, Action Hero! (H J Harper, Random House), designed by Nahum Ziersch and Astred Hicks, Design Cherry

Best Designed Young Adult Book August (Bernard Beckett, Text), designed by WH Chong and Susan Miller

Best Designed Reference and Scholarly Book Swainston's Fishes of Australia (Roger Swainston, Penguin), designed by Clare Tice

Best Designed Primary Education Book Pearson Library, Life Cycles of Australian Animals: Echidna (Greg Pyers, Pearson), designed by Glen McClay and Nikola Kyle

Best Designed Secondary Education Book Oxford Big Ideas Australian Curriculum, Mathematics 8 (Nolan et al, OUP), designed by Sandi Dani and Trampoline, and Santiago Villamizar

Best Designed Higher Education and Tertiary Book (tied) Graphic Design, Australian Style Manual (Barnum et al, McGraw-Hill), designed by Astred Hicks and Emily and John Gregory Principles of Microeconomics, 5th edition (Gans et al, Cengage), designed by Leigh Ashforth and Olga La What do you think of the winners?