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Judging the design of books is the work of the Australian Publishing Association's Book Design Awards - and an in-house designer at UWA Publishing is gaining national acclaim as a one of the best in the business.

UWA Publishing's Anna Maley-Fadgyas has made the awards shortlist three years in a row. This year, she is in the running for the prize for the best designed cover for An Everyday Transience: The Urban Imaginary of Photographer John Joseph Dwyer.

Her cover for An Everyday Transience features one of Dwyer's stark photographs: against a plain dark background is a moustached young man in a pith helmet and crumpled white suit with a smoking cigarette in his left hand and his right tucked into his pocket.

Edited by UWA's Philip Goldswain and William Taylor, An Everyday Transience celebrates 150 of Dwyer's images of the 19 ^th century evolution of the Australian Goldfields with the addition of a story by prize-winning author Joan London. The result is an intriguing analysis of industrial activity, the effects of fast changing communities as well as present day economic and environmental concerns.

Ms Maley-Fadgyas took out the cover award in 2009 for Wild Bees: New and Selected Poems by Martin Harrison, which sported the simple design of a copper foiled ‘bee' flying across a striking black background. And her overall design of the book Boomtown 2050: Scenarios for a Rapidly Growing City by UWA's Richard Weller was shortlisted in the general illustrated book category in 2010.

"These awards are a testament to the amazing work that is being employed to make sure each book published by UWA Publishing is truly a work of art, both inside as well as on the cover," Director of UWA Publishing, Terri-ann White, said.

The Australian Publishing Association's Book Design Awards will be announced on May 19 in Sydney, during the Sydney Writers' Festival.

Media references

Britt Ingerson (UWA Publishing)  (+61 8)  6488 3182
Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 5563  /  (+61 4) 32 637 716