ABCD Awards 2025!
The 12th Annual Academy of British Cover Design awards took place last night (Thursday 6th March); although they very nearly didn’t. A dodgy cable had event organiser Jon Gray sprinting off into the night like a bearded Batman to find a replacement. Luckily he did and the show could go on!
Emcee extraordinaire Jack Smyth was back in his rightful place, announcing the categories and urging us all to keep the noise down. Turns out that 100ish inebriated designers in one room can cause quite the ruckus.
Legendary organisers Jon Gray and Jamie Keenan took a minute at the end of the evening to shout-out Jack for his Designer of the Year win at the 2024 British Book Awards (aka The Nibbies). As you can see, he was thrilled to be the centre of attention…
A massive thanks to Jon and Jamie for all the time and money that they sacrifice in order to honour British cover design and give us all an excuse to step away from our screens for one night.
And here are this year’s winners!
Young Adult was presented by Michaela Alcaino and went to designer Arabella Jones and illustrator Lucie Corbasson-Guevenoux for Macbeth
Sci-Fi / Fantasy was presented by Pat Fox and went to Jo Walker for Troll
Non-Fiction was presented by Julia Connolly and went to Lucy Scholes for Dead Weight
Series Design was presented by David Eldridge and went to Kishan Rajani for the Earl Lovelace series
Classic or Reissue was presented by Saffron Stocker and went to Kishan Rajani for The Buddha of Suburbia
Two very deserved wins for Kishan, who had just finished his last day working for Faber and is kicking off his freelancer career with a bang!
Children’s 0-5 was presented by Valeri Rangelov and went to designer Nia Roberts and illustrator Matt Hunt for Up High
Children’s 6-12 was presented by Nicola Price and went to Elisabetta Barbazza and Studio Helen for Secrets of the Snakestone
Literary Fiction was presented by Beci Kelly and went to designer Emma Ewbank and photographer Anastasia Mukhina for Above Us the Sea
Crime or Thriller was presented by Dan Jackson and went to Emma Pidsley for Butter
And lastly, Mass Market was presented by James Erpingham and went to Dan Jackson for Girls
Can’t wait to do it all again in 2026!
Editor, artworker and lifelong bibliophile.