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Best Book Design
Best Book Design from all over the world – 2024 winners released
11.03.2024
The 2024 jury has awarded the publication “Walking as Research Practice” with the GOLDENE LETTER, the highest mention.
“Walking as Research Practice” was previously honored in Dutch and Swiss book design competitions. The title was published by Soapbox and designed by Jana Sofie Liebe.
“A small but significant work; a uniquely bound, hand-held opus in which tactile paper, a rough hence vibrant edge, and a perfectly imperfect form add up to a whole that evokes emotion and inspiration: Walking as Research Practice demonstrates in an unobtrusive way what design is all about. Designer Jana Sofie Liebe and managing editor Lynn Gommes have created a book about walking that’s ideal for reading while walking, waiting, or standing,” says the jury.
In addition to the highest award, the Goldene Letter, another 13 books from China, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland were awarded.
Five jurors from five different countries – Jianping He, Päivi Helander, Isidora Nikolić, Alexandra Stender, and Scott Vander Zee – came together in the German National Library in Leipzig from February 8th through 10th 2024 to examine and evaluate books from 34 different countries.
“For me, it was very exciting to see for the first time how the jury dealt with these many books, how they debated, exchanged ideas, and made decisions. In advance, I was wondering how much the books from the different countries would differ from each other. And what similarities will there be in the books’ materials, formats, typesetting, and printing? I was sure that there would be more similarities than differences. Because although this is a competition, the strength of ›Best Book Design from all over the World‹ lies, to my mind, in how it brings people, cultures and design approaches together – and makes the connections between them visible,” says the new managing director of Stiftung Buchkunst, Birte Kreft, about the jury’s work.
Winners
Goldene Letter
Walking as Research Practice
- The Netherlands/Switzerland
A small but significant work; a uniquely bound, hand-held opus in which tactile paper, a rough hence vibrant edge, and a perfectly imperfect form add up to a whole that evokes emotion and inspiration: Walking as Research Practice demonstrates what design is all about.
Gold Medal
Critical Coast
- Denmark
Critical Coast is a book that catches the eye at first glance. It is an interdisciplinary reader that explores the ecology and spaces of coastal landscapes, the urgent situation of contemporary coastlands, and diachronic ideas about the future of coasts.
Silver Medal
A Brief Moment ( ) A Long Tradition
- Denmark
This book reflects 1616 / arita japan’s rich, 400-year history of craftsmanship and tells the firm’s story in a wonderfully calm and relaxed way.
Silver Medal
Press Paintings
- Sebastian Riemer
- publisher: Spector Books, Leipzig
- Switzerland
Sebastian Riemer’s Press Paintings series looks at retouched press photographs from the last century. He examines numerous images, analyzing the manual work that went into such retouching, a primitive process from today’s perspective. This throws up questions about the material nature of the decades-old images and the physicality of the people depicted.
Bronze Medal
À Arles / Tout le monde peut être féministe
- Collectif Othon / Bell Hooks
- publisher: Éditions divergences, Paris
- France
This series of books from the French publishing house “éditions divergences” has a clear visual identity, featuring a minimalist graphic structure and a recognizable color scheme.
Bronze Medal
Die Entstehung des heutigen Menschen
- Switzerland
An unfinished book project by Swiss art historian Sigfried Giedion (1888–1968) has been turned into a substantial though lightweight volume that seems to contain three books. This is because the material chosen for the outer cover is also used for internal dividers, resulting in what you might call inner covers.
Bronze Medal
Die Rationalität des Baumeisterlichen
- Thomas K. Keller
- publisher: Park Books, Zurich
- Switzerland
This large-format architectural volume reveals itself to be a silent manifesto. The tall, slender book block, encased in flexible cover boards, does not feel clumsy or heavy at all.
Bronze Medal
Ingen har sett det du ser
- Norway
The cover of this large, spiral-bound book doesn’t tell you at first glance what it’s about. But after the first few pages, the viewer is sure to be moved – here, the famous Norwegian artist Edvard Munch is approached from the perspective of a child and with an understanding, empathetic gaze.
Bronze Medal
Innenputz
- Germany
This application-oriented handbook shows the surprising potential of interior plaster as a material and takes a critical look at contemporary building conventions.
Honorary Appreciation
Čhávata z manéže
- Czechia
Bearing a candyfloss-coloured cover, this small but thick book is great fun. It takes us on a journey to 1930s America. Despite the bygone era around which the circus story revolves, it has a very fresh feel. We get to know circus staff and performers – people who don’t enjoy particularly high social status and who have had to eke out a living in deprived areas of the US.
Honorary Appreciation
Kniha vnímání
- Czech Republic
This book takes us on a sensory journey of discovery. A separate chapter is dedicated to each of our five senses and, although each differs from the others in its artistic and printing techniques, the overall result retains consistency and balance. A less mainstream, more alternative illustration style creates a melancholic and subtle feel throughout.
Honorary Appreciation
Glory Through the Ages: the Culture of Hanfu
- Hanfu Beijing
- publisher: Chemical Industry Press, Beijing
- France
Glory Through the Ages: the Culture of Hanfu offers almost everything you might expect from Chinese book design: warm, rich colors, fabric paper that echoes featured garments, contemporary interpretation of traditional Chinese clothing, typical vertical arrangement; folding paper, wire bookbinding technique, and vivid contrast between gold foil stamping and rough corrugated paper.
Honorary Appreciation
Sebaldiana
- Finland
Before her first visit to Corsica, Finnish artist Elina Brotherus read W.G. Sebald’s posthumous fragmentary texts about the island, and the author subsequently became her travel guide. She visited the places he wrote about: the forest of Aitone, the Bavella massif, a hotel on the red cliffs above Piana, and the village’s cemetery.
Honorary Appreciation
UPO 4: Reading the Sky
- France
The very name of the small but excellent French publishing house “Éditions Non Standard” expresses its guiding principle: non-standard. The same could be said for its “UPO” series, the acronym standing for “Unidentified Paper Object.”
Unique of its kind the competition Best Book Design from all over the World / Schönste Bücher aus aller Welt has been held annually in Leipzig since 1963. Since 1991 Stiftung Buchkunst (German Foundation for Book Design) has been responsible for overseeing it.
Within this competition, the technical and aesthetic level as well as the appropriate and artistic design of the books are compared beyond national borders. These days publications from more than 30 countries take part in the competition of the book design network. The focus is on international exchange and mutual inspiration.
Copy Editing: TErra Friedman King
This publication is sponsored by the Chytomo’s Patreon community
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