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Best of the Year
Best Books of 2020
The books that won a GDUSA award in 2020, each with the firm and the designers credited.
17 award-winning projects
A book is the longest commitment a reader makes to a piece of design, and the cover is what wins that commitment at the shelf. The designer sets a typographic system a reader can live in for three hundred pages and a cover that sells the book at thumbnail size, for the publisher's list and the reader's shelf. The winners here are readable first and handsome because of it. Spectrum Creative's Hospitalitarian turned a hotelier's biography into a book built around the man's own philosophy, and Maverick Studios' Jimmy John's ABC book took a full page for making a sandwich chain's brand read as a bedtime story. The best book designers in the awards are collected here. Open any title to page through it and learn what made it work.
Standouts of 2020
- My Life in Gluttony: A Culinary Adventureby Studio Spear for SpearWrites · 2020
- Fintech at Fifty Commemorative Bookby Thinkso Creative for Instinet · 2020
- Zap! Tap! Roar! Superheroes of Musicby J2 Design NYC for Spring Promise Productions · 2020
- Hi, My name is Haleyby Digital Print & Design for Youth on the Ridge Community Foundation · 2020
- Scruffy Book Designby Door No. 3 Design, Inc. for Shelley Ross/ The Cure Alliance · 2020
- Wood, Smoke, and Fire: Exploring the Visual Culture of South Carolina Barbecueby Nathan Spainhour · 2020
2020
My Life in Gluttony: A Culinary Adventure
Books
Firm
Studio Spear
View Project→
2020
Fintech at Fifty Commemorative Book
Books
Firm
Thinkso Creative
View Project→
2020
Zap! Tap! Roar! Superheroes of Music
Books
Firm
J2 Design NYC
View Project→
2020
Hi, My name is Haley
Books
Firm
Digital Print & Design
View Project→
2020
Scruffy Book Design
Books
Firm
Door No. 3 Design, Inc.
View Project→
2020
Wood, Smoke, and Fire: Exploring the Visual Culture of South Carolina Barbecue
Books
Firm
Nathan Spainhour
View Project→
2020
Facing Gun Violence Book Cover
Books
Firm
Open Door Design Studio (ODDS)
View Project→
2020
Joanne Marie Centella - My Mother's Story
Books
Firm
Mark Duebner Design
View Project→
2020
Killer Visual Strategies Book by Amy Balliett
Books
Firm
Killer Visual Strategies
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2020
Make Ready: The Case for UCO Design
Books
School
UCO School of Design/University of Central Oklahoma
View Project→
2020
Savage Impressions Book Design
Books
Firm
P22 Type Foundry
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2020
Art Called: The Sculpture of Don Justin Meserve
Books
Firm
Griffin + Skeggs Collaborative
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2020
Book Proposal for The Race Crisis of Today | An Oral History of the Mississippi Challenge of 1964 and its Implications
Books
Firm
ZRA, Inc.
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2020
Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy (Book 1 Chaos Rising)
Books
Firm
Sarofsky
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2020
The Nature Explorer's Sketchbook
Books
Firm
2k Design
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2020
Elijah Lovejoy's Fight for Freedom by Jennifer Phillips
Books
Firm
Leave It to 'Berta
View Project→
2020
The Social Black Belt Book Design
Books
Firm
BrandFactory
View Project→
All Books
Common questions
- How many books won GDUSA awards in 2020?
- The gallery lists 17 winners from 2020 in this category, out of 132 across all years. Each one appears here with its firm and designer credits.
- Which firms won the most GDUSA awards for books in 2020?
- The 17 winners came from 17 different firms and in-house teams, with no firm winning twice in 2020. Best Books firms of 2020, by award wins.
- Who are the clients on the 2020 books?
- Clients named on this work include Del Rey | Penguin Random House, Dugdale Projects, Instinet, Shelley Ross/ The Cure Alliance, SpearWrites. The credit comes from the firm that entered the work.
- How do I enter next year's awards?
- Entries go through the GDUSA entry platform. A single entry costs $120 as of October 2026, and packages bring the price per piece down to $400 for ten to twenty entries. Winners who publish get a project page here with full credits, and publication is the paid step. How the awards work.