Te Papa Press
Award for Best Typography 2025

Finalist

Designer: Arch & Jane MacDonnell, Inhouse

Title: Japan: An Autobiography

Publisher: Six Point Press
Format: 195 x 120mm, 160pp, section Sewn in 12 with red thread. Gatefold cover. Diecut cover with one window that reveals an image on the reverse of the cover flap.

Typography: The Future and Heldane

Publisher’s Brief
“The brief was to design a small book made up of an approximately 20,000-word text about Japan to be illustrated with the author’s own photographs. Text and images had to be closely related in a format without chapters or headings of any kind. Colours used were to be distinctly related to those found in Japan, hence the use of vermilion, the colour of Shinto. Although not a guidebook as such the finished product, an autobiography, had to be conveniently sized almost as a pocketbook for easy reference while travelling. The book would include a map, bibliography and acknowledgments.”