Awards Book Archive

Plastic Free: The Inspiring Story of a Global Environmental Movement and Why It Matters
  • Winner

Designed by
Josh Durham, Design by Committee
Category
Best Designed Non-Fiction Cover
Year
2021
Publisher
NewSouth Publishing

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

An important and timely book- but heavy subject matter- tricky for a designer! The key to the design of this book was to balance those two things but make the cover feel accessible, inspiring and positive. Granted the plastic bag fish is a touch grim, but the scale of image and the energetic hand scrawled typography and offset this creating a cover that is charming and intriguing. Printed on reverse stock which gives it a lovely textured feel in the hand and a beautiful soak of that aqua colour. It has great shelf presence in bookstores.

Details
Dimensions
153 x 234 mm
No. pages
272
Special finishes
To ensure no plastic lamination was used, I decided to use the reverse side of the coated art board, so the surface was a bit textured, and used a dry trap varnish for protection.
Credits
Internal Design
Jo Pajor-Markus
Typesetting
Jo Pajor-Markus
Printing
Griffin Press
Author
Rebecca Prince-Ruiz and Joanna Atherfold Finn