Haymarket designer wins for Book of the Year

The catalogue cover

Australian printing title ProPrint’s own Sam Grimmer has won the Galley Club award for Australian Book of the Year for his work on Fairfax and Roberts’ catalogue Jewellery.

Grimmer, who works as a creative director and designer on ProPrint magazine, credited working for a client that understood the value of print and was willing to loosen the purse strings as integral in producing the winning work.

“I’d say the reason we won was the client was willing to spend money,” Grimmer said. “They saw the value of keeping the job onshore to maintain quality control.”

“In the end the book was opulent like the jewellery it was a catalogue for. [The client] understood that the book had to be as lavish as the product.”

Printed by McPhersons Printing Group, one of the strengths of the book was its use of a six colour Hexachrome press to produce the cover.

Grimmer also described it as “gratifying” that the book wasn’t the work of a major publisher, saying “this was simply the work of a bunch of talented people brought together to do something.”

Jewellery printer McPhersons also picked up the Award for Innovation in Publishing and Printing for the book Coloured Women, while Hong Kong-printed atlas Earth won Book of the Year.

The Awards were held on June 20 at the Harbour’s Edge Events Centre in Sydney.