Te Papa Press Children’s Book Wins A Top Prize At Museum Design Awards

A Te Papa Press book about arachnids has won the Children’s Book category in the prestigious Museums Australasia Multimedia and Publication Design Awards (MAPDA).

Noting that its ‘authoritative design makes the content less terrifying’, the judges said that the ‘consistently good and clear design elements’ of Why is that Spider Dancing? The Amazing Arachnids of Aotearoa made the content accessible for all ages.

The book, written by Simon Pollard and Phil Sirvid and designed by Kate Barraclough, has also been shortlisted for the 2022 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.

Another Te Papa Press title, Going to Te Papa | Asiasiga ‘i le Falemata‘aga i Te Papa (written by Dahlia Malaeulu and designed by Liz Tui Morris of Bolster Design) was highly commended in the children’s book category of the MAPDAs. Hei Taonga mā ngā Uri Whakatipu | Treasures for the Rising Generation (written by Wayne Ngata, Anne Salmond and Monty Soutar et al, and designed by Area Design) was highly commended in the adult book category for its ‘successful and honest design’ which the judges called ‘beautiful’.

The MAPDAs are an annual celebration of excellence and quality in design of publications and multimedia produced for the museums sector across Australia and New Zealand. The 2022 winners were announced during the national conference of the Australian Museums and Galleries Association Incorporated (AMaGA) in Perth last week.

Success at the MAPDAs is nothing new for the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and its press. Two Te Papa titles, Protest Tautohetohe: Objects of Resistance, Persistence and Defiance and Crafting Aotearoa: A Cultural History of Making in New Zealand and the Wider Moana Oceania, shared top honours in the book section for large institutions in 2020, and Tatau: The History of Sāmoan Tattooing took out the same category in the 2019 awards.

The full list of 2022 MAPDA winners can be seen here.

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