2010 PANZ Book Design Award Winners
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Book designer Keely O’Shannessy was announced Awa Press Young Designer of the Year at last night’s annual Book Design Awards ceremony, run by the Publishers Association of New Zealand.
Book designer Keely O’Shannessy was announced Awa Press Young Designer of the Year at last night’s annual Book Design Awards ceremony, run by the Publishers Association of New Zealand.
Runner-up for the same award last year, O’Shannessy was described by judges Dexter Fry and Katy Yiakmis as the ‘stand-out winner’ of 2010 and her designs, ‘effortlessly hit the nail on the head every time.’
O’Shannessy’s exceptional talent was acknowledged in three categories this year. In addition to the Young Designer Award, she won the award for best non-illustrated book with Mirabile Dictu and was highly commended with her cover for As the Earth Turns Silver.
A freelance graphic designer, O’Shannessy considers herself lucky to be working in the field she is most passionate about: book design. She has a degree in Visual Arts from AUT and has completed postgraduate studies in art curatorship and interactive media. She describes her entry to the field of book design as ‘a lucky break’:
‘I find designing books really rewarding because it brings together many of the things I love – reading, researching, conceptual/creative thinking and also an amazing freedom to experiment with a diverse range of mediums’
Last year’s winner, Spencer Levine, says ‘the awards have brought me to the attention of more publishers and these new partnerships have produced some great results so far.’
Sarah Healey and Kalee Jackson were shortlisted alongside O’Shannessy and were Highly Commended at the awards.
The Awa Press Young Designer of the Year award is in its second year and recognises exceptional talent in book design by a designer under 35. They are judged on artistic merit, innovation of form and appropriateness to the intended market.
Other Supreme Winners at PANZ Book Design Awards was The Life & Love of Trees which scooped the supreme Gerard Reid Award for Best Book sponsored by Nielsen Book Services at the Publishers Association of New Zealand Book Design Awards.
Designer Cameron Gibb was applauded at last night’s ceremony for a design that judge Peter Gilderdale said is of ‘the highest quality, and the judges ultimately had no hesitation in choosing this as the best book . . .
The Life & Love of Trees had an x-factor that was hard to deny’.
The judging team of Peter Gilderdale, Sharon Grace and Graham Beattie went on to praise Gibb’s work by saying, ‘The book has a huge impact, and what we liked was the way the design was able to enhance the photography in such a way that the whole became greater than the sum of the parts. There are lots of coffee table books with wonderful photos, but few of them achieve this impact – and we think the designer has to take much of the credit.’
The winner of another major award of the night, the Harper Collins Award for Best Cover, went to Magpie Hall, designed by Sarah Laing and described by the judges as ‘an outstanding example of a well designed and executed cover, back and front, that reflects the story in an appealing way.’
Another standout this year was Old Hu-Hu, designed by Michael Greenfield and illustrated by Rachel Driscoll, winner of the Scholastic New Zealand Award for Best Children’s Book. Earlier this year awarded the New Zealand Post children’s book of the year, the title was described by the judges as a ‘superb integration of text and illustration’.
The judging team said, ‘The quality of the design shown proves that the standard of New Zealand book design is very high and would compare with the world’s best.’
The awards are run by the Publishers Association of New Zealand (PANZ) to promote excellence in, and provide recognition for, the best book design in New Zealand. The competition is judged in six categories, with a winner for the highly coveted Best Book chosen from the shortlist.
The awards are sponsored by a range of publishers, along with North & South magazine and Kalamazoo Wyatt & Wilson printers.
PANZ 2010 AWARD WINNERS
Gerard Reid Award for Best Book sponsored by Nielsen Book Services
Cameron Gibb for The Life & Love of Trees by Lewis Blackwell
PQ Blackwell/Hachette (NZ)
HarperCollins Award for Best Cover
Sarah Laing for Magpie Hall by Rachael King
Random House (NZ)
Awa Press Young Designer of the Year
Keely O’Shannessy
Pindar Award for Best Typography
Grant Sutherland, Mission Hall (interior), Robyn Sivewright, Afineline (typesetting), Neil Pardington (cover)
for Art at Te Papa edited by William McAloon
Te Papa Press
Random House New Zealand Award for Best Illustrated Book
Cameron Gibb for The Life & Love of Trees by Lewis Blackwell
PQ Blackwell/Hachette NZ
Hachette New Zealand Award for Best Non‐Illustrated Book
Keely O’Shannessy (cover), Katrina Duncan (interior) for Mirabile Dictu by Michele Leggott
Auckland University Press
Pearson Award for Best Educational Book
Book Design Ltd for Year 9 Graphics by Paul Bourdōt
Cengage Learning
Scholastic New Zealand Award for Best Children’s Book
Michael Greenfield for Old Hu‐Hu by Kyle Mewburn, illustrated by Rachel Driscoll
Scholastic New Zealand
Posted on: July 1, 2010