AIGA has announced the results of its 50 Books/50 Covers 2013 competition.
A panel of jurors including Michael Bierut, partner at the New York design firm Pentagram; Jessica Helfand, founding editor of Design Observer; and Peter Mendelsund, book designe, writer and associate art director of Alfred A. Knopf Books chose 50 outstanding books and 50 exceptional covers.
2013's book submissions ranged from the conventional to the radical. While the radical entries-small run experimental pieces that challenge not only our ideas of what a book is, but what reading is-were endlessly fascinating, the enduring hold of traditional publishing, against all odds, was inspiring in its own way.
From well-produced, beautifully illustrated volumes on significant artists produced on behalf of major museums, to cookbooks that made the act of cooking (or for that matter eating) seem like an afterthought, designers and publishers are still translating abstract ideas and incorporeal experience into tangible objects of desire.
more: aiga.org (277)