The Alcuin Society Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada is the only national competition for book design. Winners of our awards are Canadian book designers whose books were published in the country in the previous calendar year.

The winning books are exhibited both nationally and internationally, and nominated for the Best Book Design from all over the World competition in Leipzig, Germany.

Alcuin Book Design Awards

The first Alcuin book design competition was held in 1981, after the competition The Look of Books/Les plus beaux livres, held by the Book Publishers Professional Association [of Canada] and later funded by Design Canada, was discontinued.

The Alcuin Society decided to continue holding a similar competition, as it complemented so well the Society’s aims: to encourage a national awareness of book design in the Canadian book industry, by encouraging Canadian publishers to pay closer attention to the look of books in all its aspects: from paper quality to choice of type, to excellence in printing, to illustration. The Society also hoped to encourage publishers to hire qualified Canadian book designers, and to honour them with recognition of their best work by their peers. And not incidentally, to promote the sale of Canadian books to the Canadian public.

The Alcuin Awards competition has been held annually since 1984, with the exception of 2022 which combined 2020-1 submissions. Categories have changed slightly over the years. Most recently, “Comics/Bandes dessinées” was added in 2016 to recognize the increase in publication of graphic novels. Further changes may occur as publishing patterns evolve.

All Canadian publishers and designers are encouraged to participate.

History

Photo Stiftung Buchkunst, Award winners at the 2023 Best Book Design from all over the World jury panel

  1. Call for Entries
    The Awards are announced at the end of the year and call for entries sent to publishers.

  2. Competition day
    Each year, the Society selects three judges with slightly varied areas of expertise. The judging takes place in Spring, at the Sheridan College campus in Mississauga, Ontario.

  3. Winners announced
    We notify the winners and start planning the exhibitions, the catalogue and the Awards Ceremony.

  4. Catalogue
    The catalogue is published in the Summer. It contains details about the books and judges’ comments for each winning entry.

  5. Exhibitions
    Winning books are exhibited at libraries, galleries and museums throughout Canada and abroad.

  6. Awards Ceremony
    The ceremony takes place at the Arts & Letters Club of Toronto. It’s a place for winners and Alcuin Society members to meet.

  7. Best Book Design from all over the World
    As representatives of Canada, all our winners enter the competition for the Best Book Design by Stiftung Buchkunst in Leipzig, Germany in the following year.

Timeline

Judging is based on the suitability of the design concept in relation to the intellectual nature of the content and the intended audiences.

The hallmark of the judging process is, and has always been, that each book is considered as a total entity. Examined is every aspect of each book, including the dust jacket, binding, endpapers, half-title page, copyright page, title page, page layout, typography, integration of illustrations, chapter openings, running heads, reproduction of illustrations, photographic styles, clarity of printing, choice of paper, footnotes and bibliographical references. All are judged in the context of the book’s purpose.

If a judge has participated in the production of a book, that book should not be submitted as an entry in the current competition, but may be entered the following year.

Judging

Permanent collections

Winning books are contributed to the permanent collections of the following organizations:

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“Through its annual awards recognizing excellence in book design in Canada, the Society has found a raison d’être focusing all the other arts of the book from printing to papermaking, calligraphy to illustration and typography. All go towards making beautiful books that are both legible and pleasurable to readers.”

— Peter Mitham, Amphora No. 170