AIGA and Design Observer announce the results of 50 Books | 50 Covers competition

AIGA and Design Observer has announced the results of their 50 books | 50 covers competition for 2016. Book designers and publishers entered over 700 book and cover designs from over 23 countries. The jury consisted of graphic designer and writer Gail Anderson, creative director Michael Carabetta and designer and author Jessica Helfand, who whittled entries down to just 50 books and 50 covers.

Highlights from the book designs are Artkek and the Aaltos: Creating a Modern World designed by Irma Boom Studio, Looking Good: A visual guide to the nun’s habit created by LucienneRoberts+ and Seeing Things: A Kids’s Guide to Looking at Photographs from Atelier Dyakova.

Stand-out covers include Spin’s design for Herb Lubalin: Typographer, as well as its cover for Lance Wyman: The Monograph and Janet Hansen’s The Bed Moved.

Michael Carabetta, who has previously juried the competition said: “Not only in design – [but] in production; in paper, mixing coated and uncoated… People are getting into the real, physical qualities of the book.”

Online, each of the selections will become part of a “permanent, accessible and historic” collection of “notable graphic design” in the AIGA Design Archives and each piece will be published on Design Observer.

The selected physical books will become part of the AIGA collection at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University’s Butlet Library and the Robert Hass Arts Library at Yale University.

To view the full list of books click here, and for the covers click here.