Awards Book Archive

Disappearing Act
  • Shortlisted

Designed by
Hazel Lam
Category
Best Designed Children's Fiction Book
Year
2015
Publisher
HarperCollins Publishers

About the Designer

Hazel is a senior book designer at HarperCollins ANZ, where she entered the publishing industry in 2013. Her experience spreads across fiction, non-fiction, illustrated books, children’s illustrated books and YA. In her previous life she has worked in motion graphics, broadcast design, magazine publishing and advertising for various clients in both Sydney and London. She loves to obsessively illustrate patterns, eat delicious foods and tell cheese jokes to anyone who will listen.

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Design Rationale

This short book had a very small budget so I knew I would be illustrating it myself. However, I was determined to find a way to include a magic trick in the design. After much experimentation I came up with an illustration that looked like the magician character the normal way up, but when you rotate the book he disappears and instead we see a rabbit coming out of a hat. Now you see me, now you don’t. I then used the shout line to encourage interaction and inverted the back cover in case you missed it.

Details
Dimensions
129 x 198 mm
No. pages
182
Credits
Internal Design
Hazel Lam
Illustration
Hazel Lam
Author
James Moloney