HarperCollins Publishers Award for Best Cover 2023

Finalist

Designers: Alan Deare & Dave McDonald, Area Design

Title: Jumping Sundays: The Rise and Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand
Publisher: Auckland University Press
Format: 234 x 153mm, 408pp, flexibind. The cover and endpapers are printed in multiple fluro colours to max out on the psychedelic shelf appeal. It practically glows in the dark. With matt lamination + spot UV on a 300gsm Flexi Art Board. Text is 4c throughout on 100gsm Bai Jin 1.3 Ivory Woodfree (FSC).

Typography: Doyle, Eckmannpshych, Termoli. The contemporary fonts reference the 60s and 70s: Eckmannpsych is the amorphic, psychedelic reference for the feature titles and chapter numbers. The loosely kerned caption type, Doyle, hints at the typewriter, the evident medium for self-publishing and revolutionary ‘seizing the means of production’ zeitgeist of this period. Termoli is the body font which we associate with the Scotch typeface genre, a certain Britishness  and its latent sense of the colony state. However, Termoli has some tasteful, idiosyncratic details lending it a subtle ‘outsider quality’ without being distracting. With its generous proportions, the typeface has a warm feel (as so much of the 70s period typography) and is inviting to read.

Judges’ comments The colours of 1960s and 70s counterculture jump out of this cover, turning monochromatic images into something resembling a good LSD trip, and the purple spine gives it great shelf presence. The freeform title type hits the same wavelength, inviting readers to ‘turn on, tune in, drop out'.

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