Awards Book Archive

After Australia
  • Longlisted

Designed by
Josh Durham, Design by Committee
Category
Best Designed Literary Fiction Cover
Year
2021
Publisher
Affirm Press

About the Designer

Josh worked in magazine design before setting up his company Design by Committee under the mentorship of Australian book design luminary W.H. Chong. He draws upon a broad skill base to offer both illustrative and concept driven solutions to literary fiction, commercial fiction, YA, children’s, non fiction and illustrated book commissions for all of Australia’s leading publishers.

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Design Rationale

Short stories peeking into Australia’s future, authored by Indigenous writers and writers of colour: I wanted to do something a bit subversive with this. I found a cartoon of a wholesome 50s white family at the beach, scrubbed out their faces and turned it on its side. It had a nice tension: storybook imagery treated in an unsettling way. To complement this, I chose simple serif type that wove itself into the design and worked to serve the powerful imagery. I mocked up the back with a seagull scrubbed out to link the two sides of the cover.

Details
Dimensions
153 x 234 mm
No. pages
272
Credits
Internal Design
Affirm Press
Typesetting
Affirm Press
Printing
Griffin Press
Author
Michael Mohammed Ahmad (Editor)