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Three young book designers have been singled out for a new award that encourages young designers to develop their careers in books – the Awa Press Young Designer of the Year. The award is one of a range of book design awards run by the Book Publishers Association of New Zealand (BPANZ) in association with the New Zealand Listener.From a strong field the judges have shortlisted three of the entrants for the award: Carolyn Lewis, Spencer Levine and Keely O’Shannessy.

Judges Nick Turzynski and Sharon Grace say ‘It bodes well for the future of the award that the best of the entries sit convincingly alongside the main body of the BPANZ Book Design Awards.’

The judges were looking for ‘spacial sense, typography, innovation and the designer’s complete understanding of their subject’. Also important was ‘a sense of passion, without which book design cannot succeed’. Judges were encouraged by the potential in the entries that were not shortlisted, confident that there is a strong future for the Award and book design in general.

With considerable experience for their years, the three shortlisted designers are finding book design a welcome attraction within the wider design space.

Carolyn Lewis graduated from Unitec School of Design, and designed street music magazine The FiX, before moving on to work for book packager PQ Blackwell in Auckland. She had the opportunity to design an array of books including Mandela: The Authorised Portrait and A Simple Freedom by Robben Island prisoner Ahmed Kathrada. Lewis currently works as a freelance book designer in Auckland.

Spencer Levine set up his own studio in 2008 in Wellington, after working for various design agencies for 9 years. He enjoys every aspect of design, from brief to concept and on to delivery. Encompassing clients of all sizes, from arts organisations to corporate sectors, his work is largely print-based with a lean towards book publishing.

Keely O’Shannessy is a freelance designer. Once she had gained qualifications in Fine Arts from AUT in 1998 and Electronic Design and Interactive Media from RMIT in 2003, she worked as a web/multimedia designer and video artist in Melbourne for three years. She started freelance design work for Penguin NZ in 2006 and fell in love with designing books. Since then, publishing work has become increasingly central to her practice.

Judges Turzynski and Grace will have a tough time selecting one standout from the shortlist. Reinforcing their decision will be their extensive design experience both in the book industry and wider afield, various accolades and previously awarded BPANZ book design awards.

Entrants for the Awa Press Young Designer of the Year Award were asked to send between three and five books they designed, published between 1 January 2008 and 31 March 2009, to be judged collectively.  The designer had to be aged under 35 years to qualify. The winner will be announced at the BPANZ Book Design Awards in Auckland on Thursday 3 September.

 9 June 2009

New Zealand has a pool of outstanding book design talent, as revealed by the shortlist released today for the 2009 Book Publishers Association of New Zealand Book Design Awards.

“The finalists we have chosen are representative of a very fertile collaboration between New Zealand publishers and designers. In all cases, a good text has been enhanced by a designer’s sensitive and creative response,” says Peter Gilderdale, Convenor of Judges for 2009.

Gilderdale, along with other judges Graham Beattie and Guy Somerset, found it difficult to shortlist three books in each category. Gilderdale admits, “Judging these awards proved really tough because of the surfeit of exceptionally well-designed books to choose from.”

Katy Yiakmis, a previous finalist in these awards, is represented in three categories, with three books designed for Random House NZ: her skills traverse the illustrated category with Mates & Lovers, the non-illustrated category with Diggers Hatters & Whores, and the new G.A. Pindar & Son Award for Best Typography with Into the Wider World.

Sarah Maxey stands out again this year with three titles shortlisted. Her covers for Doubtless: New and Selected Poems and Collected Poems, internal design by Robbie Burton and Katrina Duncan respectively, were both shortlisted in the non-illustrated book category. Maxey is also shortlisted with Yiakmis and Arch MacDonnell in the new typography category for How to Look at a Painting.

Practised hands of previous book design awards winners Marie Low, Katrina Duncan and Alan Deare are seen again in this year’s shortlist.

The competition is judged in five general categories, with a winner for the highly coveted Best Book and Best Cover chosen from the shortlist. The awards will be announced at a ceremony on 3 September, along with a new award for the Awa Press Young Designer of the Year.

The awards help promote excellence in, and provide recognition for, the best book design in New Zealand. They are sponsored by BPANZ, in association with the New Zealand Listener and Publishing Press.

The full list of finalists for the 2009 BPANZ Book Design Awards is as follows (with the designer mentioned first):

Scholastic New Zealand Award for Best Children’s Book

• Sarah Healy (The Apple, Ben Brown & Tracy Duncan, Penguin NZ)
• Sarah Nelisiwe Anderson (The Were-Nana, Melinda Szymanik, Scholastic New Zealand)
• Sarah Elworthy /Gavin Bishop (Piano Rock: A 1950s Childhood, Gavin Bishop, Random House New Zealand)

Hachette New Zealand Award for Best Non-Illustrated Book

• Robbie Burton (Internal), Sarah Maxey (Cover) (Doubtless: New and Selected Poems, Sam Hunt, Craig Potton)
• Katrina Duncan (Internal), Sarah Maxey (Cover) (Poems 1951-2006 CK Stead, Auckland University Press)
• Katy Yiakmis (Diggers Hatters & Whores, Stevan Eldred-Grigg, Random House New Zealand)

Random House New Zealand Award for Best Illustrated Book

• Alan Deare (Ladies, A Plate, Alexa Johnston, Penguin NZ)
• Katy Yiakmis (Mates & Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand, Chris Brickell, Random House New Zealand)
• Alan Deare (White Silence, Grahame Sydney, Penguin NZ)

Pearson Award for Best Educational Book

• Book Design Ltd (Internal), Brenda Cantrell (Cover) (Excellence in Biology III, Martin Hanson, Cengage Learning)
• Marie Low & Esther Chua (Internal), Marie Low (Cover) (Saying What you See, Alison Annals, Abby Cunnane and Sam Cunnane, Pearson)
• Meredith Biberstein (Through a Gap in the Fence: Journal of Secondary Students’ Writing and Visual Arts 2008, Ministry of Education, Learning Media)

GA Pindar & Son Award for Best Typography

• Sarah Maxey (How to Look at a Painting, Justin Paton, Awa Press)
• Katy Yiakmis (Into the Wider World: A Back Country Miscellany, Brian Turner, Random House New Zealand)
• Arch MacDonnell (Certain Words Drawn, John Reynolds, Random House New Zealand)

“Now, more than ever, in a world awash with entertainment options, we need lively, critical reviewers and book pages to highlight the joys of reading” said the judges Morrin Rout and Stephen Stratford when announcing the six finalists in the Book Publishers Association of New Zealand (BPANZ) Review Awards today.

Three finalists have been selected in each category and four of the six finalists are Dunedin based.

Landfall, New Zealand Listener, and Otago Daily Times are the three finalists for the Best Review Page or Programme.

Clare McIntosh (Sunday Star-Times), David Eggleton (New Zealand Listener), and Helen Watson White (Sunday Star-Times) are the three finalists contending for the title Reviewer of the Year.

The winners will be announced at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards ceremony in Auckland on Monday 27 July. The Reviewer of the Year Award winner will receive a $1,000 prize.

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New Zealand Post is to become the naming rights, sponsor of the New Zealand Book Awards from 2010.  This follows the decision by Pernod Ricard New Zealand to make the 2009 Montana New Zealand Book Award its last year of sponsorship.Announcing the change, Hamish Wright, Chairman of Booksellers New Zealand, the awards administrator, was full of praise for the service to the New Zealand book industry and reading public that had been given by Pernod Ricard New Zealand (formerly Montana Wines), for over a decade.

“Since 1996 excellence in New Zealand writing and publishing has been synonymous with the name Montana. It has been an important feature of the literary scene in this country with much anticipation each year of finalists and winners.

“This year will be no exception, with the finalists for the 2009 Montana New Zealand Book Awards to be announced on 2 June and the winners revealed at a gala function in the Auckland War Memorial Museum on 27 July,” said Mr Wright.

New Zealand Post Group Chief Executive, John Allen, said the company was very pleased to assume naming rights sponsorship of the awards. New Zealand Post are also the current sponsors of the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.  Other sponsors of the awards are Creative New Zealand and Book Tokens NZ.

Mr Allen said literature and literacy have for many years been at the heart of New Zealand Post’s  community support programmes, which include the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, Books in Homes, the New Zealand Post Mansfield Prize, the New Zealand Post National Schools Poetry Awards and Literacy Aotearoa.

“New Zealand continues to produce outstanding, internationally acclaimed writers and we were greatly attracted to this rare opportunity to strengthen our commitment to fostering this country’s literary talent.  These prestigious awards serve as both an incentive and recognition for New Zealand writers.”

He commended Pernod Ricard for its past support and said New Zealand Post would seek to build on the already unparalleled reputation of the awards.

A review of the structure of the New Zealand Book Awards will be undertaken prior to finalising the arrangements for the New Zealand Post sponsorship for 2010.

Booksellers NZ Chief Executive Lincoln Gould said the review would be conducted in June with views and opinions on a new structure to be drawn from the widest possible group of stakeholders and interested parties.  It is planned that the new structure will be placed to allow for entries for the 2010 awards to begin in October.

A conference in Auckland next month, organised by the BPANZ-affiliated Digital Publishing Forum, will examine the Future of the Book. And it’s a big future. The US$100 billion global book industry – and increasingly newspapers and magazines – is on the cusp of change that’s unfolding at an accelerating pace.

“The future is digital, mobile and global and the Future of the Book conference covers it all,” says conference organiser and Digital Publishing Forum director Martin Taylor. It will be the major event on the Digital Publishing Forum’s calendar this year and is scheduled to run over two days from June 24-25 at the Hyatt Regency in Auckland. Taylor hopes it will attract a range of delegates, from publishers to booksellers, library, education and technology partners.

The programme is packed with sessions from international speakers and local experts. And it will offer plenty of opportunities to check out new products and ideas, buy or sell digital content, expand your network of contacts, and start doing business.

A highlight will be the Future of the Book in Education stream which will open up the global potential of e-learning.

You can view the programme on the Forum’s website. Places are limited so register early – and there’s a special BPANZ earlybird discount rate if you register by 29 May.

The conference has an impressive line-up of international speakers confirmed so far, including:

• Neelan Choksi of Lexcycle, the developer of leading iPhone ebook reader Stanza recently acquired by industry heavyweight Amazon
• Michael Ross, senior vice president/education for Britannica, author and publishing Hall of Famer
• Sherman Young, academic and author of The Book is Dead. Long Live the Book, an expert on the cultural impact of new technologies
• Richard Pipe, CEO of Singapore- and India-based InfoGrid Pacific, an ebook production and distribution company with years of real-world experience and a global publishing client list.
• Plus a complement of great local presenters and topics, including practical case studies, spanning key areas and opportunities in digital publishing and the mobile web today.

If you’re a supplier to the industry, or are interested in buying or selling digital content, there are opportunities to exhibit and meet the who’s who of digital publishing in New Zealand.

The conference is now open for registrations. Visit the website (digitalpublishing.org.nz/future) to find out more.

BPANZ is very pleased to announce that Publishing Press will be supporting our new-look BPANZ Book Design Awards this year and will be printing the catalogue of finalists and winners.

Originally the in-house print operation of CCH NZ, Publishing Press commenced operation as an independent print provider in December 1996. The company brings a wealth of print and publishing knowledge to the market along with a plant and machinery geared for book production.

Jeff Weller, Managing Director commented, “Publishing Press is delighted to be involved with sponsorship of the BPANZ Book Design Awards. We look on this as an excellent opportunity to give something back to an industry we have been involved with over the past 12 years. Hopefully we can continue this relationship for future years to come.”

David Ling, BPANZ Book Design Awards Coordinator says, “BPANZ welcomes Publishing Press as a new sponsor. The company is well known to many of our members for the quality of their book printing and for their excellent service. Their enthusiasm in supporting these awards is much appreciated.”

 The Book Publishers Association of New Zealand (BPANZ) Review Awards are presented each year in conjunction with the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Two awards are offered: Best Reviewer, and Best Review Page or Programme. Their aim is to recognise the vital importance of a healthy literary culture and to reward articulate, responsible and informed criticism.

The two judges for 2009 are Morrin Rout and Stephen Stratford.

The BPANZ Best Review Page or Programme Award will be made to the publication, website or programme that presents the highest quality book reviews in a style relevant to their target audience. The BPANZ Reviewer of the Year receives a $1,000 prize. Special acknowledgements will also be made.

The winners of the BPANZ Review Awards will be announced at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards gala dinner on Monday July 27 in Auckland.

The principal sponsors of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards are Montana and Creative New Zealand. The awards are managed by Booksellers New Zealand and supported by Book Publishers Association of New Zealand, the New Zealand Society of Authors and Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd.

 ‘Book designers have the power to kill a book,’ says Peter Gilderdale, convenor of the 2009 judging panel for the BPANZ Book Design Awards. These awards are our opportunity to celebrate the New Zealand book designers who don’t exercise that power, and instead make the pages we read resonate visually with the power of authors’ words. The Book Publishers Association of New Zealand (BPANZ) today announced the judging panel for the 2009 Awards, which features a broader programme and wider support from the publishing and design communities.

Peter Gilderdale is Head of Graphic Design at AUT University. Joining him on the panel is Graham Beattie, a fulltime book reviewer and book blogger, and Guy Somerset, arts and books editor of the NZ Listener and a regular reviewer on TVNZ 6’s ‘The Good Word’ programme.

Gilderdale’s expertise is in hand lettering and typography, essential in judging a new award for typography – one of two new awards offered this year in an expanded programme.

The G.A. Pindar & Son Award for Best Typography aims to distinguish typographic skill as a vital part of the design process. Says Gilderdale:

When we find ourselves struggling to read a book, we automatically say ‘isn’t it badly written’. We don’t ask whether the author might have actually delivered a literary masterpiece to the publisher, only to have it set in 7-point Bodoni type, on white shiny paper, with 25 words to the line and no leading. If that happened, then it wouldn’t matter if the author’s name was Margaret Mahy or Maurice Gee, the book would still be impossible to read.

The second new award is the Awa Press Young Designer of the Year. Further details and the separate judges for this award will be released in May.

The publishing industry is demonstrating its support for the BPANZ Book Design Awards by sponsoring individual awards, alongside major sponsors the NZ Listener and Spectrum Print.

The awards for 2009 are:

Nielsen Award for Best Book

HarperCollins Publishers Award for Best Cover

G.A. Pindar & Son Award for Best Typography

Random House New Zealand Award for Best Illustrated Book

Hachette New Zealand Award for Best Non-illustrated Book

Scholastic New Zealand Award for Best Children’s Book

Pearson Award for Best Educational Book

Awa Press Young Designer of the Year

Entries for the awards are open until 30 April with entry forms available on the BPANZ website. The shortlist will be announced 9 June and the 2009 BPANZ Book Design Awards ceremony will be held at the Art Lounge, Auckland Art Gallery, on 3 September.

ENDS

Contact: Natalie Wyse, Whitireia Publishing, bpanz.bda@gmail.com, 021 124 3353

 Teacher, blogger, palaeontologist, and science historian, these are some of the day jobs held by the writers whose books are shortlisted in the inaugural Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book Prize announced this week.

The judges, Professor Jean Fleming, Professor Harry Ricketts and Professor Brian Boyd, said “The quality and diversity of the books entered for the prize was wonderful to see.”

The Royal Society of New Zealand, our national science academy, established the prize for popular science books in December to celebrate the very best in this genre. The prize is $10,000 for the author(s) and $2,500 for the publisher.

The five shortlisted titles for the 2009 Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book Prize are: 

The Awa Book of New Zealand Science edited by Rebecca Priestley (Awa Press)

Falling for Science by Bernard Beckett (Longacre Press)

Hot Topic: Climate Change and the Future of New Zealand by Gareth Renowden (AUT Media)

In Search of Ancient New Zealand by Hamish Campbell and Gerard Hutching (Penguin)

Wetlands of New Zealand: A Bitter-sweet Story by Janet Hunt (Random House)

Professor Richard Dawkins (author of The Selfish Gene and other popular science books) will announce the overall winner during a live video conference between New Zealand and the UK, at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival on Friday 15 May 2009.