Penguin Random House New Zealand
Award for Best Illustrated Book 2019
Finalist
Designer: Anna Brown with endpapers designed by Bronwyn Holloway-Smith
Title: Wanted: The search for the modernist murals of E. Mervyn Taylor
Publisher: Massey University Press
Format: 250 x 210mm, 256mm, hardback. Cloth spine with gold blocking plus gloss artpaper panels on the case boards. Two paper stocks used for the internal pages; 160gsm Sun Woodfree and 128 Goldeast Matt Art.
Typography: Body font: Futura CE Book 9pt; titles/ display for chapters: Festival TitlingW00 39.5pt.
Judges’ comments: “People gravitate to this on the shop floor. As a whole package, it’s exquisite with so many considered nuances. Gorgeous endpapers, the paper, text, cover and lovely photographic reproductions make for a slick and sumptuous book. The two different modernist types show a sensitivity to the content, a lovely detail. Great use of spine with the bold colour and subtle use of gold. It has great impact on shop floor.”
“There is a real story uncovered and so many levels to the design. The exposed binding cloth on the cover and foiling talk to a bygone era, where civic planners and architects really made their mark on society. Where interior finishes were built to last. The end papers of this book and the carefully chosen mid-century (Festival of Britain?) typeface place this very much in the right period. From the quirky, almost awkward qualities of the composition and cropping of the front cover through exquisitely era appropriate endpapers and typographic detailing of this are so strong throughout.
“The design of the book does some heavy lifting in pulling together a wide variety of visual documentation many visual threads and stories to tell, whilst still keeping a clear design flow. Typographic choices convey the modernist time and mood that E. Mervyn Taylor was working in well.”
