Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover – as one Gray’s School of Art student has learned.
Lewis Copland, 23, has been named the winner of a nationwide art competition for his eye-catching cover artwork for The Hill of the Red Fox, written by award-winning Scottish children’s author Allan Campbell McLean.
The third-year communication design student has won the Kelpies Design and Illustration Prize 2015, beating more than a dozen others on the shortlist.
His work will now feature on the front of the latest edition of the children’s novel in bookshelves across the country.
Mr Copland said: “Winning the competition was a huge rush, as it was the first national design competition I had ever entered, and so to win it was a huge boost to my confidence in my design skills.
“I hadn’t heard of the book before, but the challenge of trying to design the cover for a Cold War spy thriller aimed at nine to 12 year olds sounded too good to pass up.”
According to the judges, “the designer’s limited colour palette, dynamic composition and bold typography come together to create a strong and attractive cover design.”
Mr Copland, who also received £250 for winning the competition, added: “For my entry, I tried to take the more playful and child-like elements of Soviet Cold War propaganda and mid-century Russian graphic design trends and use them to create an exciting and colourful design that will hopefully appeal to the target age bracket.”
