Awards Book Archive

Dinner with the Dissidents
  • Winner

Designed by
Josh Durham
Category
Best Designed Commercial Fiction Cover
Year
2019
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

A densely plotted Soviet era spy story full of literary inspiration, secrets, love, and political intrigue. The protagonist, an aspiring writer goes undercover to spy on another writer for the KGB. Tying together the themes of literature/writing and spy’s/deception something ‘revealing itself to be something else’ was the starting point. The marriage of the brutal soviet style typography cut through with the hand drawn letters underneath neatly illustrates this theme with much graphic potency. The tear hole reveals the human side to the story in a stark and dramatic way. All typographic work is by Design by Committee.

Details
Dimensions
155 x 235 mm
No. pages
280
Special finishes
Matt Laminate Stock
Credits
Internal Design
Josh Durham
Illustration
Josh Durham, Design by Committee
Typesetting
In-house
Printing
Griffin Press
Author
John Tesarsch