Kelpies Design & Illustration Prize Winner Announced

We are very excited to announce that Edinburgh-based illustrator Astrid Jaekel is the winner of the inaugural Kelpies Design & Illustration Prize! We made the announcement at an award ceremony last night at Edinburgh’s Gallery Seventeen, where we will also be showcasing the ten shortlisted entries this weekend.

Astrid’s design for the cover of The Sign of the Black Dagger by award-winning author Joan Lingard really stood out for the judges; they loved her sophisticated use of colour, as well as the way she used mirrored images of Edinburgh to hint at the story’s dual narrative.

Astrid received a £250 cash prize and will work with the Floris design team to produce the final cover for the book, which will be published in the autumn.

Two commended designers, Mark Doyle and Victoria Pickford, were also awarded a cash prize of £50 each. The judges loved the way Mark’s design captured the helter-skelter architecture of Edinburgh’s Old Town, while they thought Victoria’s use of spots of bright colour against a dark background conjured up the perfect atmosphere for the story.

We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who entered the Kelpies Design & Illustration Prize. The response was fantastic and we hope to build on that in years to come. Keep your eyes peeled for details of next year’s Prize!

About the Kelpies Design & Illustration Prize

This year, for the first time, we challenged creatives across Scotland to design a cover for a forthcoming Kelpies novel, The Sign of the Black Dagger by Joan Lingard. The entries we received were of a very high quality and we’re excited about relaunching the prize for next year. Keep checking the website or follow us on Twitter for news and updates.