Collection of the Award-Winning Publications of the Best Book Design – 2025 Contest
In 2025, the International Book Arsenal Festival in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Ukraine held the Best Book Design Contest for the tenth time.
The international jury selected the winner of the Grand Prix of the contest and the winners and finalists in five nominations:
- Word Book
- Art Book
- Utilitarian Book
- Visual Storytelling
- Experiment
The jury also awarded four Special Honors.
The collection of the award-winning books and finalists of the contest represented Ukraine in the international competition Best Book Design from all over the World, organized by the German Foundation Buchkunst, and at other national and international venues. This year, the book which was a finalist in the nomination Visual Storytelling—Do You Read Me? On Communication and Understanding Each Other from the art studio Agrafka (Romana Romanyshyn, Andriy Lesiv), the Old Lion Publishing House—got shortlisted for the world contest.
The Best Book Design Contest is held by the International Book Arsenal Festival in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Ukraine.
Project partner: Foundation Buchkunst.
Collection Best Book Design from all over the World – 2025
Since 1991, the competition and exhibition Best Book Design from all over the World has been organized by the Foundation Buchkunst (Art of Book) in Frankfurt/Leipzig. Only those books which have already won awards in their national competitions are eligible for the selection. Due to this independent selection of their best, all countries can present the current state of their book art. Thus every year, the winners of the Best Book Design Contest from Book Arsenal participate in the global competition, where the international jury of experts reviews hundreds of award-winning titles from national competitions of over 30 countries.
We are pleased to present the collection of the books that won the Best Book Design from all over the World competition in 2025.
THE GOLDENE LETTER, the highest award of the jury, was awarded to the publication Forget Me Not / Vergissmeinnicht, which had previously won an award at the Dutch book design competition. The book was published by Building Fictions, Amsterdam, and designed by Rudy Guedj.
Thirteen other awards—one gold medal, two silver medals, five bronze medals and five honorary diplomas—went to books from China, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland and Slovakia.
21 books were shortlisted by the jury, among them there was the book that received one of the Special Honors of the Ukrainian Best Book Design – 2024 Contest for the feeling of the material—Behind Blue Eyes (curation, editing, translation—the Charity Project Behind Blue Eyes in collaboration with Readellion Publishing, art team, design, layout—Havhav bureau (Mariia Havrysh, Volodymyr Havrysh).
Project partners: Goethe-Institut Ukraine and Foundation Buchkunst, Germany
BRAW Amazing Bookshelf-2026
The BolognaRagazzi Awards of the Bologna Book Fair annually evaluates thousands of children’s books from different countries and regions of the world, selects winners and awards special honors in five categories: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Opera Prima, Comics and Toddler. The jury may also assign a special New Horizons award to a particularly innovative work.
Conceived and created to develop intelligence, curiosity and thirst for knowledge of a younger audience, picture books are increasingly becoming a cultural product of great interest to all audiences, not just to children. Among them there are works of extraordinary sophistication and amazing ingenuity. Along with the works of famous authors, the works of the authors who will become famous names of tomorrow are showcased.
We are pleased to present the selection of the publications that gained great admiration of the international jury of experts, critics and journalists who evaluated the world’s outstanding book products in the BRAW competition in 2026.
The selection was first exhibited at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in April 2026 and, within our partnership, was provided to Book Arsenal for presenting to the Ukrainian audience.
Project partner: Bologna Children’s Book Fair