In 2022, the Best Book Design Contest will be held for the seventh time. The Contest is organized by the International Book Arsenal Festival in cooperation with Goethe-Institut Ukraine, supported by the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Buchkunst Foundation.
In view of the difficult circumstances of the Russia’s war in Ukraine, this year’s Contest will be a special war edition, aiming at supporting the sustainability of the Ukrainian book industry creative community.
Books that were published from June 2021 to December 2022 and have not been submitted to the Contest before are accepted to participate in the Best Book Design Contest 2022.
Books must be created by Ukrainian designers/illustrators or commissioned by a Ukrainian publisher. Publications with purchased licensed content, the rights to which belong to foreign companies, are not considered.
The competition is open to books by publishers, individuals, as well as institutions that initiated the publication. Only up to 5 books from one publisher can be submitted to the competition. Participation in the Contest is free.
The winners will be determined in five categories:
- Text Book (books in which the textual part dominates: poetry, prose, fiction, non-fiction);
- Visual Book (books mostly with the visual part: art publications, albums, photo books, catalogs, books with a large number of images, graphic novels, etc.);
- Kids Book (kids and adolescent books of various genres and types, children’s graphic novels);
- Utility Book (popular science book, scientific, educational literature, guides, cookbook, etc.);
- Experiment (self-published books, photo books, art books and limited editions, zines, graphic novels, etc.).
Among all the books submitted to this year’s Contest, the jury members will determine 15 winning books, 3 books in each of the categories. The winners of the Contest will represent Ukrainian book design in the Best Book Design from All over the World competition organized by the German Buchkunst Foundation; the winning books will also be exhibited at international book fairs in Leipzig and Frankfurt.
In view of the unequal work conditions that some of the Ukrainian publishers and designers/illustrators have experienced due to the full-scale war in Ukraine, this year’s Contest will be held in the format of professional review by the jury members, and the Grand Prix will not be awarded.
The results of the Best Book Design Contest will be announced in January on the Book Arsenal website.
This year’s Ukrainian program at the Frankfurt Book Fair has shown us how important the presence of Ukrainian books has become in the media and the publishing sector of Europe and all over the world. Therefore, despite the extremely difficult conditions that publishers, book designers, and printing industry have been experiencing due to the war, this year’s Best Book Design Contest is an opportunity to once again remind the world about the resilience and perseverance of Ukrainian culture. This year, we have decided not to award the Grand Prix, but to determine only 15 winning books that will be submitted to the Best Book Design from All over the World competition organized by the German Buchkunst Foundation, as we strongly believe that everyone who has worked on creating new books despite all the challenges deserves an award
— Fabian Mühlthaler, Director of the Goethe-Institut Ukraine.
We have decided to nevertheless hold the Best Book Design Contest 2022, despite the cancelled 11th Book Arsenal Festival, the difficult conditions in which all of us are working today, and in which Ukrainian publishers and book designers have been creating their books all over this year. But this difficult year happened to all of us; it had its losses, but also its gains. We want to award the best ones, to name their books and give thanks to them, as well as not to miss the opportunity to present Ukrainian book design at the Best Book Design from All Over the World competition in Germany this year. After all, the global presence of our books, the promotion of high-quality contemporary Ukrainian cultural product, and the communication of our agency and dignity to the world are especially important today
— Yuliia Kozlovets, Coordinator of the International Book Arsenal Festival.
We kindly ask you to read carefully the updated REGULATIONS on the organization and holding of the Best Book Design Contest.
You can apply for participation via the link.
The deadline for submission of applications and printed copies of books for the Contest is December 23, 2022.
Please send printed copies of books by mail or courier to the address of the Mystetskyi Arsenal office:
Kyiv, 10 Lavrska st.
Contact person: Oksana Karpiuk, +380675889410
In 2021, the Book Arsenal Festival held the sixth Best Book Design Contest. 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. Read more about the winners in other nominations via the link.
The Best Book Design Contest was launched in 2016. It is organized by the International Book Arsenal Festival and Goethe-Institut Ukraine, supported by the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Buchkunst Foundation. The winners of the Contest represent Ukrainian book design in the Best Book Design from All over the World competition organized by the German Buchkunst Foundation; the winning books are also exhibited at international book fairs in Leipzig and Frankfurt.
Contact persons:
Oksana Karpiuk, Book Arsenal
[email protected]
Maria Shubchyk, Goethe-Institut Ukraine
[email protected]