By Mythily Merai, Daisy Shayegan, and Grace Briggs-Jones
The Penguin Cover Design Award 2024 shines a spotlight on the creative talents of aspiring designers who are passionate about book cover design. This prestigious award, hosted by Penguin Random House, is a celebration of creativity, innovation and the pivotal role that cover design plays in the world of publishing. It provides a unique platform for new designers to showcase their skills and gain recognition in the competitive field of book design. The award aims to nurture and discover fresh design talent by inviting students and aspiring designers in the UK or Ireland to create their own book covers for selected Penguin titles.
This competition not only offers participants the chance to work on real design briefs but also to have their work judged by a panel of esteemed industry professionals. Judging criteria for the award include originality, creativity, visual appeal, relevance to the book's theme and overall impact. The competition is free to enter, and participants cannot submit more than one design per category.
The shortlist of each category was announced on Thursday 18 April. The shortlisted applicants were then asked to submit a short text explaining the concept for their design, a one-page landscape PDF demonstrating the thought process from the original research to the final concept and a high-resolution PDF and JPEG of the front cover only and a full cover design with and without bleed and trim marks.
The first-place winner of each of the three categories will receive a six-month-long mentorship programme with a member of the Penguin Art Department. First, second and third-place winners will also receive a Wacom Intuos Pro Medium tablet and Penguin Random House design book worth £100.
The fiction award went to Cadi Rhind's reimagining of the cover of Daisy Jones & the Six, a bold and beautiful cover design inspired by the centrality of seventies music to the novel. The Swansea-based illustrator describes her inspiration as stemming from her father's love of the seventies Californian music – the soundtrack of her childhood car journeys. The blocky vintage typography is a further way in which her love for this era permeates the cover design. Richard Ogle, Art Director for Transworld, describes how immediately Cadi's cover “stood out from the pack from the very first overview of the entries. There’s a confidence in the use of type and colour that reflects and builds on the references to the 1970s aesthetic and Cadi’s reminiscences of family car journeys soundtracked by her father’s love of 70s music, like Eagles and Joni Mitchell, really feels like it has filtered through to the authentic, yet contemporary, resonance of the design.” The cover transports the reader directly to the rock'n'roll world of Daisy Jones, and is a deserving winner.
For the non-fiction award, entrants were tasked with re-designing the cover of Atomic Habits by James Clear. This New York Times bestseller explains how lots of small decisions can amount to life-altering changes. George Griffiths' cover design is a fragmentary collage and aims to parallel the message of the book, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. He describes how “Atomic Habits focuses on the combination of small decisions and behaviours that combine to create a better life. My book concept is based upon this combination of small, different habits, building and layering together to have a larger effect than they would on their own. I created my design by taking small rips of cardboard, paper and other physical materials and piecing them together to form the words Atomic Habits - just as small habits piece together to transform your life.” Richard Bravery, Art Director at Penguin General, praised the layered nature of the collage design, which “subtly alludes to the narrative of change and habit.” Creatively combining subject matter with innovative design, George Griffiths, a graduate of Arts University Bournemouth, is an apt recipient of this award.
The children’s award challenged entrants to recreate an exciting book cover for Nazneen Ahmed Pathak’s City of Stolen Magic, a spellbinding fantasy about Chompa, a girl born with powerful and dangerous magic. Set in 1855, the story follows Chompa as she travels from India to Britain to rescue her kidnapped mother. Participants designed a cover capturing the intricate details, drama and diverse characters of Pathak’s multicultural Victorian Britain. With the book aimed at children aged nine to eleven, the cover needed to be imaginative and appealing to its core audience, as well as to parents, carers, teachers and booksellers. Charlotte Jennings, the award winner, masterfully conveyed the essence of Chompa’s journey by using colour and shape language. The orange hues in her design connect Chompa’s magic with the warmth and familiarity of India, perfectly encapsulating the spirit of the story. Anna Billson, Art Director at Penguin Random House Children’s, praised the winning design, saying “The development from the initial submission to the final design has been really well executed, showcasing a strong design eye for both illustration and typography.” A worthy winner.
If you want to take a look at the runners-up and shortlisted designs, you can do so on the Penguin website.