The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) honored InterVarsity Press designers Cindy Kiple and David Fassett with Top Shelf Book Cover Awards last week at PUBu 2016 held at Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois. The Top Shelf program highlights book design excellence, intelligence, and beauty.

"I was honored to lead a session at PUBu16 about the role of excellent design in selling books," said IVP publisher Jeff Crosby. "We are fortunate to have two such skilled designers in our midst, and I'm grateful our industry recognized that."

Kiple, who has been with IVP for fourteen years, was honored for her work on the cover for Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering by internationally renowned visual artist Makoto Fujimura. Kiple said, "For the cover of Silence and Beauty, because Mako Fujimura is reflecting on Shusaku Endo's book Silence, I wanted to use the Japanese symbols for silence and for beauty, which are beautiful in their own right. The velum dust jacket makes the cover more quiet to reflect the idea of silence as well as hiddenness, which is mentioned in the subtitle. The small, simple font is also meant to be simple and quiet."

Fassett, who has been with IVP for seven years, received the Top Shelf Book Cover Award for his work on The Radical Pursuit of Rest: Escaping the Productivity Trap by John Koessler. Fassett's design features the simple image of a pillow on a gray backdrop with varying font colors to convey the simplicity of rest as well as the constant struggle to find it. "The image is intended to allude to the paradoxical nature of the title," Fassett said. "Given the boldness of the image, I wanted to soften the overall feel of the cover with the typeface and colors by using a warmer more vibrant color to highlight 'Radical' and a cooler more relaxing color for 'Rest.'"

Lorraine Caulton, IVP's director of creative and customer engagement, said, "The creative and excellent designs of Cindy Kiple and David Fassett have been a gift to InterVarsity Press. It's exciting for all of us at IVP to get the chance to celebrate them publicly with awards like these from ECPA."