Tiliqua Press have once again put their support behind the Australian Book Design Awards this year by sponsoring the Best Designed Student Series award. With the finalists to be announced in late June, they’ve had a chat with each of the talented designers shortlisted in this category, Angela Huang, Celia Mance, Daphne Kok, Frances Peck and Kespa Katsuk.

 

Angela Huang

Tell us a little bit about who you are.

Hello! My name is Angela, and I’m a Chinese-Australian graphic designer based in Melbourne. I’m also a lover of movies, poetry, and the art of horror.

What made you start getting into book design?

Honestly, as a visually oriented person I was always more interested in films than books. Book design never really crossed my mind until my second year of uni when I enrolled in a cover art studio class. Suddenly, I’ve been introduced a whole new design field that I fell irrevocably in love with. There’s just something so intimate about it all. The physicality of these stories in book form makes for a much more immersive design process and overall storytelling experience. The bookstore is now my favourite place to be.

What was the inspiration and thought process behind your book cover?

The brief required a series of three book covers for selected works of the late Australian poet J.S. Harry. Charmed by her organic and whimsical writing style, I challenged myself with a photographic approach to capture her surrealist perception of the natural world. I thought that if I forced myself to get intimate with these wild and gritty textures, I could see things from her eyes and find the beauty in it all. Abstract colour grading was then used in a transformative editing process to highlight these lyrical intricacies. As a result, we have a series of alluring textures grounded in nature. Handwritten typography was used to compliment this imagery with a human touch, along with fragments of her poetry on the back covers – a peek into the curious world of J.S. Harry.

 

Celia Mance

Tell us a little bit about who you are.

My name is Celia Mance, I am 20 years old and I’m a third year Communication Design student at RMIT University. Outside of my studies, I love going to gigs, visiting galleries with friends, reading, and travelling (when possible).

What made you start getting into book design?

I have been an avid reader my whole life, so book design, especially covers, was always fascinating to me. Despite being told not to, I have always been one to judge a book by its cover, so it was really a natural progression of my interests that led me here! My university studies of course helped this affinity – I took a publication design module in my first year of study I was immediately drawn towards the detail-oriented approach to the work. Then, at the start of my second year, I selected the studio ‘Book Cover Design’ led by Jenny Grigg – where I produced these covers. I learnt a lot more about book design during this time, especially about how to sublimate a message through your visual language.

What was the inspiration and thought process behind your book cover?

After reading Anni Albers’ writing and researching her practice, I decided that focusing on material elements was fundamental to my design approach. Anni Albers had an extensive multidisciplinary career but is predominantly known for her woven works. Her intimate knowledge of textiles instilled an importance of material selection and material quality in her work. These elements can immensely impact the practicality and outcome of an artwork, so I intended to translate this idea into my work. The way I worked with the tissue paper was consistent with Anni’s respect for materials. I didn’t use computer cuts but instead cut out the geometric shapes and edges of the sheet by hand. I also elected to use simple geometric shapes drawn from the structural, grid-like features of her work, iconic in the Bauhaus school.

 

Daphne Kok

Tell us a little bit about who you are.

I am Daphne Kok, a Brand Designer from sunny Singapore. From choosing fonts on WordArt at a young age, I have now grown into a full-fledged creative, crafting brands that hold meaning and connection in the community. The decision to move to Australia to pursue a Bachelor of Communication Design has developed me to grow in the way I think, work and create.

What made you start getting into book design?

My love for print has been around for ages and nothing beats the satisfaction of touching and smelling a new read. Naturally, book design is something that fascinates me, leading me to design the covers of The Underground Railroad and The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

What was the inspiration and thought process behind your book cover?

By manipulating type, the covers represent the stripped away voices of the protagonists. The typographic treatment of cut letters and black on black spot gloss printing highlights the endured silence faced.

Characters at the back cover are extracted from the titles, decoding to form ‘run’ and ‘chaos’ — messages emerging through the novel. Representing the darkness and rough time that the protagonists had to endure, the covers are designed with textured black backgrounds. Lastly, the colours tie in with the characters, with yellow signifying the star on Lale’s uniform and Cora as a black woman fleeing from the whites.

 

Frances Peck

Tell us a little bit about who you are.

I am a Communication Designer located in Melbourne, currently studying a bachelor’s degree in design at RMIT University. I am interested in design and technology that powers brand experience and the digital landscape. My studio practice spans print and digital mediums, with primary areas of design interest and practice including publication, typography, brand identity and web design.

In my spare time, you will always catch me reading a good book. Which would explain my interest in book design and its industry.

What made you start getting into book design?

In my second year of university, I chose to undertake a Book Cover Design and Visual Languages design studio taught by Jenny Grigg. I had never done book design before and was a fan of Jenny’s work, so it only seemed necessary to challenge myself with this studio. It was so interesting to learn the conventions of book design, and how the cover itself tells a story.

What was the inspiration and thought process behind your book cover?

This book cover series is an adaptation of Michael Rock’s ‘Designer as Author’, which explores how design authorship has changed over time. The text is split over three parts: Part A, Part B and Part C, and each cover highlights a different era of design authorship through the use of typeface used. Further, having the letterforms overlap on different layers illustrates how design authorship is a rich and extensive subject, and cannot be explained through a simple answer or ‘layer’.

Jenny Grigg always challenged me to play with tangible materials before moving straight to digital solutions, and this is exactly what I did in this cover design. I was inspired by how the translucent paper appeared when folded over each other, and the effect it gave when text was printed onto it.

 

Kespa Katsuk

Tell us a little bit about who you are.

So, I’m 21 and currently in my third year of Communication Design at RMIT. I was born in Melbourne but am ethnically Chinese-Malaysian and Thai. I grew up around Springvale and Camberwell areas. In my spare time, I’m usually skating, learning Mandarin, hanging with friends and taking photos. I’m pretty big on cinema, especially Asian films so I try to watch that when I have time.

What made you start getting into book design?

Honestly, it was kind of just by chance. I had just moved from Unimelb graphic design to RMIT and didn’t realise that there were different studio options to pick from. So, I randomly got assigned to a book design studio which really opened my eyes to the practice. I particularly like older books cover designs, like 70’s penguin ones for example. That’s probably quite evident in these Annie Albers covers.

What was the inspiration and thought process behind your book cover?

I was generally focused on trying to make materiality the focus of the cover. As Albers’ writings stated, she wanted to let the material in her weavings speak for themselves, rather than manipulate the material to create something figurative. So, the idea behind these covers was to extract the textures from the materials Albers’ used in her weavings and position them as the cover’s central focus.

 

Thanks to Tiliqia Press for their ongoing support! You can find more about them at tiliquapress.com. All interviews can be found in full at ligaturejournal.com.

We wish Angela, Celia, Daphne, Frances and Kespa the best of luck in the upcoming awards!

The 2021 winner of the Best Designed Student Series award will be announced at the 69^th ABDA Awards on 24 June 2021.