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Penguin Random House UK announces shortlist for Student Design Award 2018

Student Design Award 2018

Penguin Random House UK has today revealed the 30 book cover designs shortlisted for its annual Student Design Award.

The Student Design Award aims to find the next generation of book cover designers by giving students the opportunity to experience real cover design briefs first-hand.

The competition sees aspiring student designers reimagine iconic book covers across the award’s three categories: Adult Fiction, Adult Non-Fiction and Children’s. This year’s book titles are:

  • Adult Fiction Cover Award – Animal Farm by George Orwell
  • Adult Non-Fiction Cover Award – A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
  • Children’s Cover Award – Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman

The 30 cover designs (ten shortlisted in each category) were chosen from more than 2,100 submissions.

You can view all the shortlisted designs here.

Art Directors from Penguin Random House have provided each of the shortlisted designers with detailed feedback on their covers, giving the students the opportunity to refine their designs before the final judging takes place.

The winners will be announced on Wednesday 20th June.

The winner of each category will win a work placement within the Penguin Random House Design Studios as well as £1,000 in prize money. The winners of the 2nd prize in each category will receive a £500 cash prize and the winners of the 3rd prize in each category will receive a £350 cash prize.

The judging panel is made up of Art Directors from across Penguin Random House UK as well as guest judges from the design and publishing industry, including Malorie Blackman, Anthony Burrill, Grace Winteringham, Orlando Weeks, Indi Davies and Tom Sanderson.

Now in its twelfth year, the Student Design Award is free to enter and open to all students studying on a Further Education or Higher Education course, regardless of their degree or institution. A number of past entrants have gone on to work in the publishing industry, with many attributing the Design Award to setting them on their future career path.

Talking about their experiences of the design process, three of our shortlisted students said:

Harry Woodgate, University of Hertfordshire: “I think as an illustrator, I often feel stuck in this middle ground between creating work that is very representational or figurative, versus work that is more graphic and design-led, and I felt like this project has really helped me work out how to navigate and combine both of those approaches.”

Lucy Scholes, Falmouth University: “I had never created a book cover with the thought of it being on shop shelves in mind. I think this is a brilliant opportunity and gives students an insight into creating covers for such a range of books. It is also interesting how differently everyone responds to the same brief.”

Saskia Wright, Nottingham Trent University: “With this award I have learnt to think outside the box. It is very easy to resort to something clichéd and obvious with a title like ‘Noughts & Crosses’ so it was important to think beyond this. This has pushed me to engage closely with the story and look at it from a different perspective to produce a design with a more considered meaning.”

Shortlisted student designers

Adult Fiction Cover Award – shortlisted entrants

Simon Breese – Billy Blue College of Design, Australia

Emily Courdelle – Norwich University of the Arts

Louis Hartley - Northumbria University

Raemarie Lee – Kingston University

Daisy Moore – Kingston University

Mulenga Musonda – University of Brighton

Joshua Payne – Falmouth University

Joanna Ruane – University of Huddersfield

Sascha Sendlbeck – University of Derby

Alva Skog – Central Saint Martins
 

Adult Non-Fiction Cover Award

Robert Benniman – Gloucestershire College

Zoe Boukouvala – Bath Spa University

Fiona Cheung – Coventry University

Cameron Edwardson – Coventry University

Fergus Frost – Central Saint Martins

Helen Kellock – Glasgow School of Art

Graham Robinson – Stockport College

James Seabright – Northumbria University

Harry Woodgate – University of Hertfordshire

Stephen Young – University of Hertfordshire
 

Children’s Cover Award

Emily Courdelle – Norwich University of the Arts

Fruzsina Czech – Ulster University, Belfast

Jade Devanna – Hugh Baird University Centre

Heléna Doré – Plymouth College of Art

Kay Hamers - University of Northampton

Katie Hilton – Blackpool & the Fylde University

Emma Hope – Glasgow Clyde College

Lucy Scholes – Falmouth University

Lydia Townsend – Northbrook Metropolitan College

Saskia Wright – Nottingham Trent University

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