Awards Book Archive

Madness: A Memoir
  • Winner

Designed by
Allison Colpoys
Category
Best Designed Non-Fiction Book
Year
2014
Publisher
Viking an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia

About the Designer

Allison Colpoys is an award-winning designer and illustrator, and the Art Director at Scribe Publications. Her picture books include The Underwater Fancy-dress Parade, Under the Love Umbrella, If All the World Were… and All the Ways To Be Smart. As well as receiving numerous Australian Book Design Awards for her illustration and cover design, she has won the CBCA Crichton Award for Best New Talent and two Australian Book Industry Awards.

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Design Rationale

This memoir about a battle with psychosis is incredible, beautifully written, honest, visceral and disturbing. During episodes of illness, Kate describes frantically writing and re-writing words and thoughts in her norebooks, underlining them, crossing them out and writing over the top of them. I created a pattern by scrawling some of my favourite extracts, using black, blue and red biro pens. I noticed that my biro scribbles created debossed effect in areas where I had done some heavy scribbling, which gave me the idea to use that finish, in an effort to enhance the intense energy of her feverish writing.

Details
Dimensions
152 x 230 mm
No. pages
266
Special finishes
Printed on reverse board with deboss on the title, author and scribbling.
Credits
Internal Design
Allison Colpoys
Illustration
Allison Colpoys
Author
Kate Richards