The Penguin Random House Student Design Award is an opportunity for students interested in pursuing a career in design to experience real cover design briefs first-hand.
The competition is open to anyone studying on a Further Education or Higher Education course (part time or full time) in any subject and at any level at the time of the deadline for entries (6 March 2018). The competition is not open to graphic design professionals. Students may enter a maximum of one design in each of the three categories.
This year the briefs are:
Adult Fiction - Animal Farm, George Orwell
Adult Non-Fiction - A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking
Children's - Naughts and Crosses, Malorie Blackman
After reading each brief, I opted to create a design for the Adult Non-Fiction book, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. This book aligned the most with my personal interest in science and space, and also to the style of design I am most interested in. The full brief is below:
In A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking attempts to explain a range of subjects in cosmology, including the Big Bang, black holes and light cones, to the non-specialist reader. The book became a bestseller and sold more than 10 million copies. It was also on the London Sunday Times bestseller list for more than five years and was translated into more than 35 languages.
We are looking for a cover design that breaks boundaries in the way that the book did when it was published 30 years ago, in 1988. It should not look like a textbook you read at school! This is a revolutionary science book with popular appeal. If you can get your hands on a copy of the book in order to get a sense of the narrative and concepts this will only help to inspire your design. The cover should feel timeless, confident and appeal to a whole new generation of readers.
Your cover design needs to include all the cover copy supplied and be designed to the specified design template – B format, 198mm high x 127mm wide, spine width 17mm.
What the judges are looking for:
We are looking for a striking cover design that is well executed, has an imaginative concept and clearly places the book for its market. While all elements of the jacket need to work together as a cohesive whole, remember that the front cover must be effective on its own and be eye-catching within a crowded bookshop setting. It also needs to be able to work onscreen for digital retailers such as Amazon.
The winning design will need to:
- have an imaginative concept and original interpretation of the brief
- be competently executed with strong use of typography
- appeal to a contemporary readership
- show a good understanding of the marketplace
- have a point of difference from the many other book covers it is competing against