Awards Book Archive

The Man in the Water
  • Highly Commended

Designed by
Astred Hicks, Design Cherry
Category
Best Designed Young Adult Cover
Year
2020
Publisher
University of Queensland Press

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

Here is a murder mystery set in a mining town; its solution will require the uncovering of many layers. My concept enfolds that story into symbols deep within the cover. I started exploring the contour lines of open cut mines tracing and drawing the concentric lines. Fragmenting and rejoining them, repetitive patterns became the ripples on a lake. Reflected stars emphasise the unknown in the watery dark. The hand-written title is the murdered body in a high-vis top rising out of the murk. The orange inside jacket and hand-written chapter numbers pull these themes inside the book.

Details
Dimensions
129 x 198 mm
No. pages
256
Credits
Illustration
Astred Hicks, Design Cherry
Typesetting
Post Pre-press Group
Printing
McPherson's Printing Group
Author
David Burton