Lift Education Award for Best Educational Book or Series – Secondary/Tertiary 2023

Finalist

Designers: Cover: Kalee Jackson, Studio Kalee Jackson
Interior: Amy Tansell & Tony Murrow, WordsAlive

Title: Environmental Politics and Policy in Aotearoa New Zealand
Publisher: Auckland University Press
Format: 248 x 190 mm, 408pp, paperback. Cover: 4c x 0c + matt lam on 300gsm C1/S art card (FSC). Text stock: 1c x 1c on 100gsm white woodfree (FSC).
Typography: Cover: Calibre bold and semi-solid. Internals: Main text uses WarnockPro, its variants creating a cohesive internal text design. Avenir Next and its Condensed variant provide clarity and contrast for other text elements.

“A paperback textbook, b&w text throughout that required a striking photographic image on the cover with lots of visual impact. It needed to engage student readers and make the subject appealing. We focused on environmental activism as the cover angle: activists and protests highlighting the issues of power and contested values. The complicating factor was avoiding obvious choices around climate strikes, land marches, Ihumātao etc that showed recognisable people. But we also wanted to show the beautiful Aotearoa landscape and highlight the issue of whenua which is so central through the book.”

Judges’ comments The design of this title responds to perhaps one of the weightiest subjects — environmental politics in a highly appropriate result. The selection of cover image, and well-balanced typographic treatment allows the visual language of hand painted protest sign the right tension and presence. Interior pages, grid, typographic system, punctuated with enough variety of type choices for segmenting content and information added to with tables and graphics or charts give the reader chance to signal changes of voice. Dispassionate design has an appropriate neutrality which allow readers to interpret the views and angles of subject from the variety of contributors and threads of thinking.

‘This Land is in Dispute’ shouts a hand-painted Ihumātao protest sign tacked to a fence in the cover photograph – making for one of the most memorable covers in the competition. The cover typography, with its cool modernist setting, reminds us that this is a textbook. The internal design is well produced with a good typographic hierarchy, appropriate line lengths and easily read.