Czech graphic designer shelves award for clean yet captivating book cover

The bright orange cover of popular Czech writer Petr Šabach’s latest collection of short stories, And in the End of Christmas, has won the 2015 edition of Design Observer’s “50 Books | 50 Covers competition”, organised in association with AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts).

Petr Šabach is one of the most popular contemporary Czech writers, known for his tragi-comical stories about communist-era Czechoslovakia.

Designed by Jan Šabach, the winning design is the most minimalist cover of Šabach’s books to date: featuring only the names of the author and book, in place of a cover image, Šabach made use of pictograms to reveal the book’s contents.

The “50 Books | 50 Covers” competition dates back to 1923, when 50 books were selected for an exhibition at the American Institute of Graphic Arts. Find the full list of 50 winning books and 50 winning covers on Design Oberver.