The Raven Shakespearikon Editions is the winner of the Jacket Design: Best of the Best competition. This BolognaBookPlus award celebrates excellence
in book cover design across the general publishing sector. This year’s showcase celebrated contemporary Greek book jacket design in their year of Market of Honour at BolognaBookPlus.
Returning for its third year, the contest was open to all participating Greek publishers who competed for the ‘Best of the Best’ award 2023. The competition is judged by an international panel of jurors drawn from publishing and bookselling experts. This year’s jury were Matt Dorfman art NYT-Book
Review, Cristiano Guerri, art Feltrinelli and Aida Fernandez Pena, La Petite Cabane. The Jury awards first place and two runners-up – that this year tied in second place – in a hotly contested competition.
Best of the Best trophies will be presented at Thessaloniki Book Fair in May (4-7) 2023.
The Jurors said of THE RAVEN, published by Shakespearikon Editions: ‘We think this cover is powerful and truly shows visually the emotional trip the reader is going to go through when reading The Raven. Excellent work! Excellent use and placement of the moon. It feels like an inevitable choice.
Visual and powerful depictions of what is yet to come, before even setting eyes on a single word written by the author is for us the purpose of a good cover, providing a glimpse of the future emotions that the text will elicit.’
The jurors were also delighted to award Iolkos Publications and Selini Publications, who tied in second place for their respective jackets, BEYOND THE FENCES and THE INVISIBLE LIFE OFADDIELAURE.
Jury comments on BEYOND THE FENCES include, ‘This cover invites the reader’s participation. The image and title talk to one another without defining each other—allowing room for individual interpretations from individual readers, while creating a relationship between the two, which feels intentional and earned. Taken together, the title and image raise more questions than they
answer which, for myself, remains the most persuasive tactic that can compel me to pick up a book I’m unfamiliar with and start reading it.’
The Jury went on to say of THE INVISIBLE LIFE OFADDIELAURE, ‘What we especially appreciate about this cover is the connection between the image and the title: the typography is bravely managed with a visual sense of vanishing, that enhances the denied identity of the protagonist’.
Mini galleria delle opere in concorso:
The Best of the Best competition is one of several illustration and design initiatives run by BolognaBookPlus for general publishing, within the wider context of the internationally recognised home of book illustration, BCBF. The competition is curated for BolognaBookPlus by the specialist Milan based partnership, Mimaster.
For further information please contact Sheerin Aswat at bolognabookplus@bolognafiere.it