Awards Book Archive

Magic
  • Winner

Designed by
Josh Durham
Category
Best Designed Non-Fiction Cover
Year
2019
Publisher
Transit Lounge

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 wild and psychedelic memoir- the sort of book that makes your own life seem straightjacketed!. Follows a young mans travel / spiritual journey and awakening into drug experience and danger. There was quite a lot of visual stimulus in the narrative- but how to narrow it down to something compelling? I worked up the lion head/Cthulhu illustration with the young man on his tongue to symbolise drug ingestion and be a focal point of the cover- all elements being key reference points in the memoir. This cover has great visual and emotional power- and shelf presence!

Details
Dimensions
155 x 235 mm
No. pages
375
Special finishes
Matt Laminate
Credits
Internal Design
Josh Durham
Illustration
Josh Durham, Design by Committee
Typesetting
Cannon Typesetting
Printing
McPherson's Printing Group
Author
Jan Golembiewski