The issue was designed by Chicago-based Normal. Renata Graw⠀was the art director and designer along with designers Alexa Viscius, Ansgar Kleem, and Rafael Barontini.
The competition was judged by Gail Anderson, designer and professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York City; Michael Carabetta, Creative Director of Chronicle Books; and Jessica Helfand, co-Founder of Design Observer. Jessica shared some remarks on the issue:
“An exquisite orchestration of type and image, held in check by a typographic grid that makes the whole thing easy to parse. A beautiful publication.”
You can find the full list of 50 books here and the 50 covers here.
Thank you to Design Observer, AIGA, and this year’s jury for selecting our issue! We are truly honored.
You can purchase a print copy of the issue here.
About this competition
“50 Books/50 Covers” has a long history of celebrating design excellence, with selections exemplifying the best current work in book and book cover design as chosen by a distinguished jury of design peers. The annual competition developed from AIGA’s “Fifty Books of 1923” exhibition and past selections have been added to the AIGA Design Archives as well as the physical archives at the Denver Art Museum and in Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Collection at the Butler Library. Since 2011, the competition has been managed by Design Observer.