The graphic designer Vera Galindo has been the winner of the STACK FIRST PRINT AWARD 2020.
The veteran Aragonese children's book publisher Apila Ediciones has just announced the jury's decision for this prize for the best illustrated children's album, aimed at new illustrators and whose objective is to find young illustration talents and promote their artistic career.
The Zaragoza City Council and the Zaragoza School of Art and the Zaragoza School of Design collaborate in this initiative, now in its eighth edition. In previous editions, the prize was awarded during Encuentrazos, an annual national meeting of illustrators and graphic designers with students from art and design schools. This year the congress was due to be held on 12 and 13 March, but had to be postponed due to the problems caused by the spread of the coronavirus, which prevented some of the speakers and students and teachers from Art and Design schools in Vitoria, Madrid and Logroño, among other Spanish cities, from travelling to Zaragoza.
The jury's decision has been made public, but the prize-giving ceremony will take place when Encuentrazos can be held, and this year's winner may have to wait until September to enjoy that moment. The exhibition of the finalist projects has also been postponed.
Since its beginnings, the Apila First Print Award has been gaining importance and has become one of the most important international awards for unpublished children's album projects. In this year's edition, the following have participated 333 illustrators from 26 different countries.
Some of the best sellers of the last few years of children's books such as Pink Monster by Olga de Dios, which has sold more than 100,000 copies in Spanish and has been translated into fourteen countries, or Guapa by Canizales, with sales in Spanish in excess of 10,000 copies and also published in numerous countries, came out of this competition.
This year's prize-winning work is titled How do you see it? and is written and illustrated by Vera Galindoa young creator who runs her own graphic design studio, Huracán Estudio, from where she takes on commissions for illustration, graphic and web design and animation.
The jury of the Apila First Print 2020 Prize has valued the originality of its proposal, a book that allows children to be introduced to the world of art through the work of outstanding contemporary artists without renouncing dialogue with the readers, reconciling learning and narrative in the same work in an entertaining way. This is in addition to illustrations of great graphic quality that retain the essence of different trends in contemporary art, despite their reinvention to bring them closer to children's imagination.
All in all, it is an amusing and thought-provoking book-album that reminds us that each of us sees things differently.
For more information:
apila@apilaediciones.com
