The Most Beautiful Books of 2020 have been awarded at the Slovak Culture Ministry. Experts judged the best book designs out of 137 books - all written by Slovak authors and printed in Slovak printing houses. The award is organized annually by the International House of Art for Children, Bibiana, as the top appreciation of bibliophile books, i.e. those by renowned authors and illustrators, usually released in limited, small volumes. Authors and publishers received the awards on Thursday, 15th of July.
Culture Minister´s award for the overall artistic and technical quality went to the new publication of the Bible, published by IKAR.
Karol Felix won the illustration award for his work on Erik Ondrejička's book Za jedinou vetou. Vladislav Rostok won the graphic design award for his book Cipár & Logo.etc, and Peter Ďurík won the bibliophilic edition of his publication called Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin: Freedom.
The company Neografia Martin received the best printing house award for Ľubomír Longauer´s publication: Utility Graphics in Slovakia after 1918, Part Three Slight Progress, for its extraordinary printing quality. The prize for the most beautiful children's book is Jaroslava Blažková´s publication: Cats Fly to Canada that was published 4 years after the author's death.
Fifteen members of the jury, including art theorists, illustrators, graphic designers, photographers and representatives of the competition organization chose 20 books and 7 student works out of 137 publications that took part in the competition. Eva Cíferská from Bibiana stated that „the number of submitted books is less compared to other years, which is, of course, partially due to the situation in our country."
Bibliophile books are predominantly aimed at book collectors.
Source: TASR
