perfectbound design news & comment


Outright at the Museum


With a heftier cash prize on offer and a new moniker in honour of a venerable staffer, the V&A Illustration Awards will be contested by 14 candidates this year. Danny Arter spoke to Rafi Romaya, art director at Canongate and a winner at last year’s ceremony, who judged this year’s Student Illustration category


T


he v&a illustration Awards have upped the ante for this year’s instal-


ment, with the overall winner to receive the inaugural Moira Gemmill Illustrator of the Year Prize and an increased cash kitty. Te winner in each of the


awards’ four categories—Book Illustration, Book Cover Illustra- tion, Editorial Illustration and Student Illustration—will pocket £3,000 (the Student runner-up will receive £2,000); with the quartet contesting the overall gong and an additional £5,000 prize money. Te winners will be annouced at a ceremony on 23rd May at the V&A, with the new overall award named in honour of the museum’s late director of design, Moira Gemmill. Te judges include Dame


Jacqueline Wilson, Creative Review editor Patrick Burgoyne and Annabel Judd, head of


design at the V&A. Te Student category was judged separately, by Canongate art director Rafi Romaya and Illustration editor Ruth Prickett. Romaya has previous with the


awards: last year she took home the Book Cover prize for her direction of illustrator Yehrin Tong for Michel Faber’s Te Book of Strange New Tings (Canon- gate). When asked about being on the other side of the judging process this year, Romaya told Te Bookseller: “It was amaz- ing to be part of the awards last year with Yehrin—she’s such a talented and generous illustra- tor to collaborate with, so it was great to see her work recognised by such a prestigious award. Being on the other side of it this year, judging the Student award, made me realise how stiff the competition is and how much amazing new talent is out there.”


: Rafi Romaya left and illustrator Yehrin Tong with their 2015 V&A Award in the Book Cover Illustration category


“Te standard was incred- ibly high and it was great to see illustration applied in so many ways. Rather than themes [emerging among the submis- sions], it was just how personal the work was and how success-


Student Illustration


fully they had found their own voice. I hope all those shortlisted go on to have fulfilling careers and I can see how many of them would lend themselves brilliantly to publishing, from children’s books to exquisitely illustrated cookbooks.” On the topic of illustration being applied across genres, I ask Romaya what she looks for when commissioning an artist to work on a Canongate title. “I’m very open-minded about who I collaborate with, from skate- board designers to music folk, but I do look for an illustrator or artist who chimes perfectly with the manuscript—whether that’s through themes or execution, as for me the cover should be a visual expression of the book in some way.” When asked about the short-


listed books—notably the book categories’ inclusion of smaller,


Kate Milner


My Name is not ‘Refugee’ Anglia Ruskin University


Katyuli Lloyd


Flush by Virginia Woolf Anglia Ruskin University


Jessamy Hawke The Clearing


Kingston University 22 |


Han Bit London vs Jeju Kingston University


Joan Alturo Morts et Vita


Arts University Bournemouth


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