The 2024 AUPresses Book, Jacket, and Journal Show, now in its 59^th year, honors the university publishing community’s design and production professionals; recognizes achievement in design, production, and manufacture of print publications; and serves as a spark to conversations and source of ideas about intelligent, creative, and resourceful publishing. 

Congratulations to our designers, Nathan Putens and Lindsey Welch, whose works were were among the top 51 book covers from 329 entries!

A full list of winners can be seen here.

Godfall by Van Jensen
Designer: Nathan Putens
Acquiring Editor: Courtney Ochsner
Project Editor: Sara Springsteen

This cover only exists because of coincidence, and not to put too heavy a genre category on this book as sci-fi but since this is like reading a super gritty X-files episode, the coincidence is worth noting.

The concept here was something I did for another book, at another press, and when I happened to walk by seeing a cover sketch from the author, I saw that same arrangement I had done years earlier, almost exactly. So I volunteered to take on the additional cover saying ‘I can do that.’

What’s worth noting is the shape of the type is framed by a shape based on an ammonite shell which relates to the organic fractal imagery present throughout the book.

With a monochrome color palette, a short title, on a light background, I have observed this cover standing out among a saturation of black covers in the Science Fiction section at the bookstore.”

—Nathan Putens, Lead Senior Designer-Compositor

The Sound of Undoing by Paige Towers
Designer: Lindsey Welch
Acquiring Editor: Courtney Ochsner
Project Editor: Abigail Kwambamba

The cover had to depict a visual of sound, of the little anxieties that come with it, without being hokey or expected.

The colors illustrate, in a way, the many facets of this collection of essays. The rich green conveys some realness of life, of a memoir, not too dark but not too happy either.”

—Lindsey Welch, Senior Designer-Compositor

---

The 2024 show will debut at the AUPresses Annual Meeting in Montréal, June 11-13, with its jurors also in attendance to offer observations and discuss their process with attendees. It will also travel to member presses from September 2024 through May 2025.