HarperCollins Publishers Award for Best Cover 2025
Winner
Designers: Duncan Munro
Title: worm, root, wort… & bane
Publisher: Alice Austen House Press
Format: 203 x 127mm, 312pp, flexibind with rose-pink foil for the cover type. Extensive wet-proofing to achieve the best presentation of the 500+ images on the uncoated paper stock.
Typography: Cover, Headings and Quotes: Cortese
Text: Tiempos Text, and, in places, Mikadan, and Akaya Kanadaka
Notes: Founders Grotesk Text.
The font choices evolved as the project progressed. The small dimensions required the body text be efficient and economical in its use of space and Tiempos and Founders worked outstandingly in their roles here. The other selections; Mikadan, Akaya Kanadaka, and especially Cortese were brought into the mix to supply an element of pagan wildness that the content required.
Judges’ comments The determination from the designer of this book has paid off – the cover stands out as a work of art. The intricate etching is reflective of the eclectic collection of images throughout the book, and the cyclical appearance of rose-pink foil. The Cortese typeface is rooted in the “unapologetic rawness of aesthetics and sounds from decades gone by.
