‘Powerful’ design earns prestigious award for Pacific artist

A uniquely designed book showcasing Pacific art from the last six decades is among the winners at the recent 2024 Publishers Association of New Zealand (PANZ) Book Design Awards.

Shaun Naufahu of Alt Group and Katrina Duncan designed Pacific Arts Aotearoa, which recounts 60 years of multidisciplinary Pasifika art, with over 120 artists, curators, and community voices contributing to it. The book earned two wins: the Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Best Typography and jointly won the Penguin Random House New Zealand Award for Best Illustrated Book.

Lana Lopesi, the book's editor, told Creative New Zealand that Pacific artists and art are not easily categorised, as there are often forgotten art forms like weaving, sculptors, and textile makers.

“Weavers, tapa makers, sculptors, resisters, quilters and disrupters all make up the texture of Pacific creativity.

“Together, they create a complex weave, which defies any easy categorising of Pacific art. Bringing together the incredible 120+ voices in the pages was a constant reminder that the reverberations of Pacific creativity are wide-reaching and sometimes unexpected.”

A unique typeface was created for Pacific Arts Aotearoa, and a traditional manulua design was used to form the body of the text. Photo/ PANZ Book Design Awards

Pacific Arts Aotearoa designer Naufahu told Creative New Zealand that a unique typeface called “Koloa Tuku” was made for the book, forming a unique fingerprint that will let the reader know where the book originated from.

“In designing this book, we wanted it to signal that it clearly comes from a group of people from a specific part of the world. Just as people have different spoken accents, you also have distinct visual accents.

“The first thing we created was a typeface named ‘Koloa Tuku’, meaning ‘legacy’ in Tongan. Utilising the manulua, the classic marking pattern, we created a grid. From that grid, we generated the letter forms. Those forms, while not transposing the manulua, instead follow the genealogy of its lines.

“When you look at this book, you know that it relates to the Moana. That’s quite a powerful thing.”

All royalties made from the book will be going towards supporting Pacific Arts in Aotearoa.

‘We need as many Māori and Pacific designers as we can get’
Another standout winner from the awards was Rewi: Āta haere, kia tere.

The design for Rewi: Āta haere, kia tere was inspired by Rewi Thompson’s personality, life, and architectural work. Photo/ Designers Institute of New Zealand Best Design Awards

Written by Jeremy Hansen and Jade Kake, and designed by Tyrone Ohia, Eva Charlton, and Max Quinn-Tapara from the studio Extended Whānau alongside Katrina Duncan. It tells the story of the late and internationally renowned New Zealand architect Rewi Thompson (Ngåati Porou, Ngåati Raukawa).

Rewi: Āta haere, kia tere claimed four awards: The Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand People’s Choice Award, HarperCollins Publishers Award for Best Cover, Gerard Reid Award for Best Book sponsored by Nielsen Bookdata, and jointly won the Penguin Random House New Zealand Award for Best Illustrated Book.

Ohia told PMN News that it’s encouraging seeing Pacific and Māori artists getting more recognition for their creativity.

“It feels really nice to win alongside Pacific Arts Aotearoa.

“It's almost more exciting to have a double win in my opinion. For me, it's nice to know that outside of Māori and Moana Nui-a-Kiwa circles, that Moana books with Moana content and Māori content are in demand and being appreciated.

“There's a want for those things at the moment, and so that's great for the culture, but it's also great for people who wanna connect with the culture and learn more about it.”

Ohia says he shaped the book by taking aspects of Thompson’s personality, life, and architectural work, creating a human portrait through the design choices.

Tyrone Ohia wants more Māori and Pasifica creatives to share their culture and stories with the wider design world. Photo/Semi Permanent

“He wasn't a very conventional architect in a lot of ways. He was negotiating his Māori culture through architecture.

“He was a guy who was often about people and place in his architecture. And so those are the sorts of cues that help us to start to shape the book.”

He added that designing the book was almost like architecture, and his job was to assemble it properly.

“There's lots of technical aspects. The book can be like a piece of architecture where it's an object, and it's got a structure to it, a pacing, different sections, which are like different rooms.”

Ohia said he's happy to share the Penguin Random House New Zealand Award for Best Illustrated Book with the design team of Pacific Arts Aotearoa.

Ohia says there needs to be more Māori and Pacifica creatives in the field so they can share their cultural perspectives and add their culture to the wider visual world.

“The more Māori and Pacifica designers we have who are interested in design, the better,” he says.

“The world is your oyster when you're a designer, and it's up to you to put that out into the world so that your culture is actually part of the visual world around you.

“We need as many Māori and Pacific designers as we can get as we further try to progress the identity of Aotearoa and who we are and tell our stories and connect with each other in more meaningful and informed ways.”