Wilfrid Laurier University Press celebrates book design with panel discussion, exhibit

April 22, 2019
For Immediate Release

Waterloo – Wilfrid Laurier University Press is inviting a panel of award-winning designers to a discussion on book and cover design. Form and Function in Great Book Design will take place April 25 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Robert Langen Art Gallery in the Library on Laurier’s Waterloo campus.

The Robert Langen Art Gallery will also be the site of the Association of University Presses’ Book, Jacket, and Journal Show, featuring book, journal and cover designs selected at an annual juried design competition. The selected designs, including The Homing Place: Indigenous and Settler Literary Legacies of the Atlantic, written by Rachel Bryant and published by WLU Press, will also appear in an annual catalogue. The full list of winners can be found on the association’s website.

“We are pleased to invite the Laurier community to engage with three Canadian designers at the top of their profession as they explore the relationship between aesthetics and meaning in textual design,” said Lisa Quinn, director of WLU Press. “WLU Press is proud to have an entry in the show for the second year in a row, with the exceptional quality of our design and production work acknowledged in the scholarly typographic category in this international competition.”

The designers who will speak at the panel include:

• Alan Brownoff, designer at University of Alberta Press and part of the 2018 Association of University Presses’ Book, Jacket, and Journal Show Committee.
• Lara Minja, principal designer at Lime Design, Inc. Lara graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design with degrees in Communication Design and Fine Arts. In 2007, she obtained a Master’s in Communication and Technology from the University of Alberta. She has a particular interest in telling stories about people, communities and culture in the form of books, catalogues and stamps.
• Michel Vrana published comics and graphic novels for five years, ran a boutique design studio for 10 years and, through all of it, loved book design the most. He set up his home studio to focus on book design in 2009.

Form and Function in Great Book Design will take place April 25 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Robert Langen Art Gallery. The discussion is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided.

The Association of University Presses’ Book, Jacket, and Journal Travelling Show will be on display April 15 to 26 at the Robert Langen Art Gallery.