Annual Show Celebrates Excellence in University Press Design
New York, NY, and Washington, DC—The Association of University Presses (AUPresses) proudly announces the juried selections for its 2022 Book, Jacket, and Journal Show. The 91 outstanding examples of university press publications are now on virtual display at https://design.up.hcommons.org/. A traveling exhibition of the Show is expected to debut during the AUPresses Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, June 18-20.
The annual show, now in its 57th year, honors the university publishing community’s design and production professionals. The Association recognizes achievement in design, production, and manufacture of books, jackets, covers, and journals, and the Show serves as a spark to conversations and source of ideas about intelligent, creative, and resourceful publishing.
Open to AUPresses member publishers worldwide, this year’s competition attracted 491 submissions, all published during 2021, in these categories:
- Scholarly typographic books
- Scholarly illustrated books
- Trade typographic books
- Trade illustrated books
- Poetry and literature books
- Reference books
- Journals
- Jackets and covers (of books and journals)
“The AUPresses Book, Jacket, and Journal Show never disappoints,” said Barbara Neely Bourgoyne, Design and Production Manager at LSU Press and Chair of the Book, Jacket, and Journal Show Committee. “The immense talent showcased in every entry, the careful consideration given by our esteemed group of judges, and the return to in-person judging—I feel extremely lucky to have been a part of it all!”
The 2022 Show jurors are:
- Stephen Coles is associate curator and editorial director of the nonprofit library and museum Letterform Archive. Cofounder of websites Typographica and Fonts in Use, and former creative director of FontShop, he is also the author of The Anatomy of Type (2012).
- Lisa Hamm is now an independent designer. After 22 years and hundreds of books—including works honored by selection in past iterations of this show as well the New York Book Show—she retired last year as senior designer for Columbia University Press.
- Tim Green is the creative director at Faceout Studio as well as co-owner and creative director of Molt Brands. His work designing books and brands has been recognized by the AIGA 50 Books | 50 Covers, PRINT, and the National Advertising Federation, among others.
- Lucy Kim is an art director at Little, Brown & Co, a division of Hachette Book Group North America. Her work, spanning more than 20 years, has been recognized by the New York Book Show and featured in Lit Hub, Buzzfeed, and Spine.
The jury members gathered in January at the AUPresses office in New York to evaluate entries. “I wasn’t sure how the other judges would respond to my Oregonian ways and ‘dad core’ style,” said Green. “But I was pleased to discover that everybody was extremely cool—just a bunch of design nerds like me.”
Coles and Hamm considered the book and journal entries, identifying 51 outstanding works from a field of 169 submissions.
“Having worked as a book designer for twenty-two-plus years, I so appreciated the skill with which my fellow designers handled complex interiors, masterfully selected and combined type, and juggled the challenges,” said Hamm. “Large workloads, paper shortages, unpredictable digital printing results—to name a few obstacles—yielded stunning innovative solutions.”
“I was especially pleased to discover designers who find ways to break free from traditional typography—not just to call attention to themselves, but to enlighten the content, or simply to delight the reader,” Coles remarked.
Green and Kim evaluated and selected the top 41 jackets and covers from 322 entries. “It’s always difficult to determine what constitutes ‘award-winning’ work,” noted Kim, “but I believe all the covers we selected were the most successful at communicating their ideas to an audience in truly beautiful ways.”
“I’d like to thank all the university press designers who submitted entries, whether they were in the final selection or not.” Kim concluded. “One of the best things about designing book covers is that your hard work is always rewarded with the production of this magical object—a book.”
The jurors will offer observations and discuss their process with attendees in a concurrent session during the AUPresses Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, June 18-20. After debuting during the conference, an exhibition of the selected entries is expected to travel to member presses from September 2022 through May 2023.
About the Association of University Presses
AUPresses is an organization of 161 international nonprofit scholarly publishers. Since 1937, the Association of University Presses advances the essential role of a global community of publishers whose mission is to ensure academic excellence and cultivate knowledge. The Association holds intellectual freedom, integrity, stewardship, and equity and inclusion as core values. AUPresses members are active across many scholarly disciplines, including the humanities, arts, and sciences, publish significant regional and literary work, and are innovators in the world of digital publishing.