Awards Book Archive

In the Dark Spaces
  • Winner

Designed by
Astred Hicks
Category
Best Designed Young Adult Cover
Year
2018
Publisher
Hardie Grant Children's Publishing

About the Designer

Astred is a freelance book designer whose distinctive work for a number of publishing houses covers fiction, non-fiction and educational, with a special emphasis on young adult fiction. She is a sometime lecturer in graphic design and was the lead author of the popular text for tertiary students, ‘Graphic design {Australian style manual}’. Astred has won a number of book design awards during her 14 year career in publishing. Recently she has branched out into illustration as well as design…

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Design Rationale

I chased this design down a rabbit hole and emerged completely lost. This Ampersand prize-winning book needed an impressive cover that would show the many facets of the story: aliens, humans living in space colonies, kidnapping, war, family, bonds of love… rabbit warren. So many cover directions, so many dead-ends. Then I stopped, reset and decided it didn’t need to tell the story, it needed to make people FEEL the story. The patterns swarm around the title, pressing in, creating conflict as opposing forces squeeze the fragile text. The cover became cryptically intriguing, allowing readers to find their own meaning.

Details
Dimensions
210 x 135 mm
No. pages
328
Special finishes
Gold foil
Credits
Internal Design
Astred Hicks
Illustration
Astred Hicks (Design Cherry)
Typesetting
Patrick Cannon
Printing
McPherson's Printing Group
Author
Cally Black