The 10th Book Arsenal Festival announced the most beautiful book of Ukraine 2021
The 10th International Book Arsenal Festival and Goethe-Institute Ukraine, supported by the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Buchkunst Foundation, announced the winners of the Best Book Design Contest 2021. This year the contest was held for the sixth time. The awarding ceremony was conducted at the Festival’s opening in Kyiv and was also broadcasted online.
The Grand Prix of the Contest was won by the Agrafka creative studio (Romana Romanyshyn, Andriy Lesiv) for the book On the Move (the Old Lion Publishing House). The same publication won the nomination Kids Book. According to the rules of the competition, the winning books will be able to represent Ukraine in the competition ‘Best Book Design from all over the World’ of the Buchkunst Foundation and will be included in the collection ‘The world’s most beautiful books’.
The winner in the nomination Text Book is the publication The Timeless Way of Building.
Author: Christopher Alexander. Published by the Osnovy Publishing. Art director: Hanna Kopylova. Design and layout: Dmytro Denyshchyk, Kateryna Smoliarova.
The winner in the nomination Visual Book is the book NARBUT. Studii. Spohady. Lysty (NARBUT. Studios. Memoirs. Letters) [A Supplemented Reproduction of the “Narbut Anthology”, destroyed in 1933]
Published by RODOVID. Design: Numo Team (Sasha Bychenko, Oleksii Salnykov, and Alina Bielova, Oleh Shedlovskyi).
The jury did not determine a winner in the traditional nominations Experiment and Utility Book, however gave two special awards: ‘For a photo book’ — to a book Lilies. Author: Alexander Chekmenev. Published by MOKSOP. Design: Calin Kruse / FLUUT Grafik-Design.
The special award of the jury ‘For cultural research’ went to a book Flights in Dreams and Reality. Published by the Dovzhenko Centre. Publication concept, cover design, book architectonics, font design: Aliona Solomadina. Selection of illustrations: Olena Honcharuk, Maryna Skyrda. Layout: Kateryna Bolshakova.
The jury also determined the finalists of the contest:
- Maiechka’s Alphabet
Authors: Ila Varina, Olha Shtonda. Published by the Nebo BookLab Publishing. Cover design, illustrations, font design and architectonics: Olha Shtonda. Layout: Antonina Mykolenko. - Angst
Author: Serhii Rafalskyi. Published by Addenda Press. Design: Yaroslava Kovalchuk. Illustrations: Yaroslav Futymskyi. - On the Move
Published by the Old Lion Publishing House
Designed by the Agrafka creative studio
(Romana Romanyshyn, Andriy Lesiv) - Curatorial Handbook
Edited by Oleksandra Pohrebniak, Dmytro Chepurnyi, Kateryna Yakovenko. Published by IZOLYATSIA. Platform for cultural initiatives. Design: Kateryna Lesiv. - KYIV by Sergiy Maidukov
Author: Sergiy Maidukov. Published by IST Publishing. Design: Grafprom. - Lilies
Author: Alexander Chekmenev. Published by MOKSOP. Design: Calin Kruse / FLUUT Grafik-Design. - NARBUT. Studii. Spohady. Lysty (NARBUT. Studios. Memoirs. Letters) [A Supplemented Reproduction of the “Narbut Anthology”, destroyed in 1933]
Published by RODOVID. Design: Numo Team (Sasha Bychenko, Oleksii Salnykov, and Alina Bielova, Oleh Shedlovskyi) - Flights in Dreams and Reality
Published by the Dovzhenko Centre. Publication concept, cover design, book architectonics, font design: Aliona Solomadina. Selection of illustrations: Olena Honcharuk, Maryna Skyrda. Layout: Kateryna Bolshakova. - A Permanent Place of Residence
Authors: Pavlo Makov and Serhiy Zhadan. Published by IST Publishing. Design: 3Z Studio. - The Passion
Author: Jeannette Winterson. Published by the Babylon Library publishing. Publication concept, cover design, illustrations: Bohdana Davydiuk. Book architectonics, layout, font design: Volodymyr Havrysh. - Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey
Author: Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht. Published by IST Publishing. Cover design: 3Z Studio. - Channels of Wrists
Author: Olha Olkhova. Published by Sammit Book. Design and layout: Romana Ruban. Photos: Yuliana Paranko. Curator of the project: Yulia Laktionova. - The Timeless Way of Building
Author: Christopher Alexander. Published by the Osnovy Publishing. Art director: Hanna Kopylova. Design and layout: Dmytro Denyshchyk, Kateryna Smoliarova.
A total of 227 books were submitted to the Best Book Design Contest 2021.This year’s jury: Jan Wenzel (Leipzig, Germany), Jonas Voegeli (Switzerland), Oksana Barshynova, Varvara Perekrest, Kyrylo Tkachov, Nika Kudinova, Hlib Kaporikov (Ukraine).
The partner of the contest was Visa, which presented MacBook Air to the winner of the Grand Prix, as well as prepared valuable prizes for the winners of categories and special awards. The finalists also received valuable presents from the International Photobank Depositphotos and Resident books, the official representative of TASCHEN publishing house in Ukraine.
For the winner of the Grand Prix, the Goethe-Institute Ukraine provides reimbursement of travel expenses to attend the Frankfurt Book Fair for the person who made the greatest contribution to the artistic embodiment of the winning book, as well as a 6-day entrance ticket to the Frankfurt Book Fair for a publisher or designer.
The media partner of the contest is Telegraf.Design. The educational partner is Projector. The Embassy of Switzerland in Ukraine and the City of Leipzig (https://english.leipzig.de/) are partners of the contest, which organized the participation of international members of the jury.
The broadcast of the ceremony was provided by MEGOGO with the support of the Festival’s partner — Visa.