Awards Book Archive

How to be Second Best
  • Shortlisted

Designed by
Hazel Lam
Category
Best Designed Commercial Fiction Cover
Year
2020
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 hilarious book captures the drama, delights and delirium of modern parenting. This concept was inspired by the brilliant title, I wanted to design something that was celebrating failure and a badly iced cake was the perfect subject matter as it is fun, familiar and relatable. This cover image was a result of multiple hours of decorating stale Woolworths cakes with unnaturally fluro icing, the result is a cake that is perfectly wrong which makes it just right.

Details
Dimensions
153 x 234 mm
No. pages
368
Special finishes
Matt Lamination with Gloss Spot UV
Credits
Photography
Darren Holt
Typesetting
Kelli Lonegran
Printing
McPherson's Printing Group
Author
Jessica Dettmann