Book Awards Winners

The Life & Love of Trees has scooped the supreme Ger­ard Reid Award for Best Book sponsored by Nielsen Book Ser­vices at the Pub­lish­ers Asso­ci­ation of New Zea­l­and Book Design Awards.

Designer Cameron Gibb was applauded at last night’s cere­mony for a design that judge Peter Gilder­dale said is of ‘the highest qual­ity, and the judges ulti­mately had no hes­it­a­tion in choos­ing this as the best book … The Life & Love of Trees had an x-factor that was hard to deny’.

The judging team of Peter Gilder­dale, Sharon Grace and Gra­ham Beat­tie went on to praise Gibb’s work by say­ing, ‘The book has a huge impact, and what we liked was the way the design was able to enhance the pho­to­graphy in such a way that the whole became greater than the sum of the parts. There are lots of cof­fee table books with won­der­ful pho­tos, but few of them achieve this impact – and we think the designer has to take much of the credit.’

The win­ner of another major award of the night, the Harper Collins Award for Best Cover, went to Mag­pie Hall, designed by Sarah Laing and described by the judges as ‘an out­stand­ing example of a well designed and executed cover, back and front, that reflects the story in an appeal­ing way.’

Another standout this year was Old Hu-Hu, designed by Michael Green­field and illus­trated by Rachel Driscoll, win­ner of the Schol­astic New Zea­l­and Award for Best Children’s Book. Earlier this year awar­ded the New Zea­l­and Post children’s book of the year, the title was described by the judges as a ‘superb integ­ra­tion of text and illustration’.

Also announced last night was the win­ner of the Awa Press Young Designer of the Year which went to Keely O’Shannessy, along with awards for Best Cover, Typo­graphy, Illus­trated, Non-Illustrated, Children’s and Edu­ca­tional Books.

The judging team said, ‘The qual­ity of the design shown proves that the stand­ard of New Zea­l­and book design is very high and would com­pare with the world’s best.’

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