Scholastic New Zealand Award
for Best Children’s Book 2019
Finalist
Designers: Aaron Beehre with Raquel Joseph, Emma Kevern and Ryan Patrick
Title: ART-TASTIC
Publisher: Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū
Format: 297 x 230mm, 108pp, hard case with cloth quarter-binding. No board on spine so that book opens out flat. Good quality uncoated stock so that artwork images are reproduced with colour accuracy – and kids can still draw all over the pages. Exposed board edges and cloth quarter-binding to look like an art workbook.
Typography: Principal typeface: Futura. This book is full of type crimes and is all the better for it. The cover is printed in a mix of neon inks blended in a glorious split-fountain of textures and shapes. The interior is an assault on good-taste with a mix of zombies, vomit and poo splatters and typefaces to match. Futura tries to hold it all together but it is overrun with hand-drawn and bastardised versions of font families too varied to list.
Judges’ comments: “Bold and irreverent, with an illustrative and playful use of type, and a fun use of vernacular, referencing film, tv, low brow design, internet memes etc. It is definitely taking art off a pedestal, and making it approachable and fun for the audience.”
“The discussion around this leads to this title perhaps being better placed in the Education category. Either way, the sprightly and vibrant design is so inviting for young creatives to engage with it.”
