Penguin Random House New Zealand
Award for Best Illustrated Book 2024
Finalist
Designers: Alan Deare and Dave McDonald, Area Design
Title: Flora: Celebrating Our Botanical World
Publisher: Te Papa Press
Format: 290 x 250mm, 452pp, hardback.
Typography: Erotique, Ivy Journal, Nuckle
“We always knew that with such a vast collection ranging across so many aspects of the arts, science and mātauranga Māori, the trick would be to make a virtue of the diversity. We therefore decided against grouping all the paintings, all the botanical specimens, all the decorative art pieces etc together, opting instead to pair each of them up with a taonga of a similar tone or texture or shape to force the reader to look at them in a fresh way.
Almost everything was rephotographed – a massive logistical exercise. Every text was freshly written for the book, and we needed a design that could accommodate the complex hierarchies of ‘label’ texts and then the discursive longer text for each.”
Judges’ comments This book is a big, grand work. The stately design, with its nods to Art Nouveau, balances classic elegance with playful colour quirks. The pleasingly textural cover with its floral typeface draws you into an equally grand interior. The use of varied paper stock and bold colour sections makes for an engaging, well-curated experience from start to finish. The large format provides ample breathing room. This ambitious project revitalises Aotearoa’s botanical taonga and offers a new and invigorating foray into the subject, unlike anything else on bookshelves.
