Awards Book Archive

The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling
  • Shortlisted

Designed by
Romina Edwards
Category
Best Designed Young Adult Cover
Year
2020
Publisher
Allen & Unwin
Design Rationale

A YA story about family, culture and mental illness. Food features heavily throughout to lighten the heavy themes, so I wanted to depict this in a fun, playful way, appealing to teens. The title uses a free flow font, made to look like noodles, and incorporates symbols to replicate emojis. The girl was created from a photo, stylised to have a sketchy, softer tone. I used vibrant colours to contrast against the soft pink background.

The text is broken up into months, so to extend the playfulness from the cover, I introduced food patterns to feature before each new month.

Details
Dimensions
128 x 198 mm
No. pages
400
Credits
Internal Design
Romina Edwards
Typesetting
Midland Typesetters
Printing
McPherson's Printing Group
Author
Wai Chim