Awards Book Archive

The Year the Maps Changed
  • Finalist

Designed by
Astred Hicks, Design Cherry
Category
Best Designed Children's Fiction Book
Year
2021
Publisher
Lothian Children's Books an imprint of Hachette Australia

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

Excitingly the new generation of design-savvy mid-grade readers appreciate nuanced, beautiful covers.

This literary fiction for mid-grade, set in 1990s Mornington Peninsula, provided an excellent conceptual collaboration between myself, publisher and involved author.

Initially experimenting with topography and riffing on map symbolism. It wasn’t until we discussed mud-maps that the illustration fell into place. Limited colour pallet invokes nostalgia, an illustrated town as seen through the eyes of a kid. Hand-lettered title woven through the land, holds much symbolism as a haphazard HOLLYWOOD sign. Far from being a static map, the scribbly illustration encourages movement.

Details
Dimensions
197 x 129 mm
No. pages
320
Credits
Internal Design
Bookhouse Sydney
Illustration
Astred Hicks, Design Cherry
Typesetting
Bookhouse Sydney
Printing
McPherson's Printing Group
Author
Danielle Binks