HarperCollins Publishers Award for Best Cover 2024
Finalist
Designer: Carla Sy
Title: Fungi of Aotearoa
Publisher: Penguin Random House NZ
Format: 210 x 155mm, 336pp. Flexi bound artboard cover, matt lam with spot UV, and matt art internal paperstock.
Typography: Recoleta Alt (Header fonts), Cotford Text (serif copy), Tellumo Var (sans serif).
” A happy, retro inspired, snugly kerned-in serif header typeface and a cheerful colourway serves to put the ‘fun’ in ‘fungi’, with a friendly and practical design style to purposefully uplift and educate the reader on all things fungi. A sturdy package built to be taken outdoors or just to sit bright and pretty on your coffee table.”
Judges’ comments This book has been a steady staple in bookstores and Aotearoa homes. The cover has a unique tone of voice, the quirky, 70s font paired with a towering electric blue werewere kōkako feels like a scientific field guide fed to you through an ayhuasca trip in a Holden Panel Van. This curation on the cover has been a masterstroke in resonating with a local audience hungry for something undeniably homegrown, inviting, personable and desirable. The type feels like it’s almost pulsating, and the book similar to some of the fungi inside could be supernatural or radioactive. It suggests a whole world is living underneath in the dark, ready to be explored. Much like the content of this best-selling forager’s guide
