Awards Book Archive

The January Stars
  • Longlisted

Designed by
Debra Billson
Category
Best Designed Children's Fiction Book
Year
2021
Publisher
Allen & Unwin

About the Designer

Debra has been designing books since Roxette had ‘The Look’. She spent her early career creating products for children as an art director and studio manager, until landing her dream job at Penguin Books. For almost a decade, this saw her working across all genres with some of Australia’s highest profile authors, until starting her own business from her Melbourne home-studio in 2007. Whilst having designed everything from children’s board books to cookbooks, Debra’s true love is creating fiction covers…

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Design Rationale

I had previously mocked up a papercut-style concept for another book for the publisher, which wasn’t used, and so I was briefed to consider that illustrative style, as well as others, for the concepts for this book.

The main protagonist of the story is obsessed with stars and space, and feels her Nan is guiding her sister, her grandpa and herself with celestial signs throughout their journey. I digitally collaged an assortment of images and converted them into the suggested papercut style, which saw this design happily approved in the first round of concepts.

Details
Dimensions
128 x 198 mm
No. pages
288
Credits
Internal Design
Debra Billson
Illustration
Debra Billson
Typesetting
Midland Typesetters
Printing
McPherson's Printing Group
Author
Kate Constable