Winners announced in World Illustration Awards 2019

An independent jury of 24 industry professionals and commissioners including Jim Stoddart, art director of Penguin Press, Connie Lam, executive director at Hong Kong Arts Centre and Leyla Reynolds, art director of gal-dem, judged over 3,600 submissions from 68 countries in eight categories to select a shortlist of 200 entries, from which the category winners have been chosen.

Highlights include Sonja Stangl’s atmospheric, painterly illustrations for the marketing and branding for RAU, an Austrian restaurant located on the edge of a nature reserve; Astrid Jaekel’s wallpaper for the Wigtown's Festival Company ‘book town’ celebrations, used to wrap 11 building exteriors throughout the town; and Fiona Woodcock’s charming children’s book, LOOK, which features images and typography created from hand-cut stamps throughout, celebrating the shape and sound of words.

Each of the eight categories has a New Talent and a Professional winner, who will be given their awards at a special ceremony held at Somerset House on 10 July. The Overall New Talent and Professional winners will be announced for the first time at the ceremony and awarded generous cash prizes.

Alongside these category awards, the AOI is to introduce three new cross-category awards, including an AOI Members Award, a Directory of Illustration Award, and the Society of Artists Agents Award for New Talent, which will be announced for the first time on 10 July.

Also new for this year are 16 Highly Commended awards (a professional and new talent award in each category), recognising the increasingly high standards of entries into the World Illustration Awards.

Judge Simon Khalil, Global Creative Director, Arab News, highlights the importance of illustration today: "Illustration plays a key role in visualising stories, especially when the subject is abstract or specific visuals do not immediately come to mind. Illustration adds colour, vibrancy and energy to stories and can grab attention in ways a photoshoot or stock shot can't."

All 200 shortlisted entries will be displayed at an exhibition at Somerset House from 11 – 28 July 2019. Here, we share just a few highlights. To see all the winners and find out more, visit theaoi.com.