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The Editors|Competitions

January 24, 2017

50 Books | 50 Covers: Jurors Announced

We are thrilled to announce the judges for this year’s 50 Books | 50 Covers competition. Enter today!

Gail Anderson is a New York-based designer, writer, and educator. She is a partner, with Joe Newton, at Anderson Newton Design. Previously, she served as Creative Director of Design at SpotCo and worked at Rolling Stone magazine, serving as designer, deputy art director, and finally, as the magazine’s senior art director. Early in her career, Gail was a designer at The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine and Vintage Books (Random House). Anderson teaches in the School of Visual Arts MFA, undergraduate, and high school design programs, and has served on the advisory boards for Adobe Partners by Design and the Society of Publication Designers. She currently serves on the board for the Type Directors Club, and is a member of the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee for the US Postal Service. Anderson is the recipient of the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Medal from the AIGA, the 2009 Richard Gangel art direction award from the Society of Illustrators, and has lectured about design (and her bottle cap collection) at organizations and conferences around the world.


Michael Carabetta is creative director of Chronicle Books, a San Francisco-based publisher. His work has received recognition in AIGA’s 50 Books | 50 Covers competitions, and in Graphis Books I and II. His projects have appeared in a variety of design publications—including Communication Arts, Critique, and I.D. magazines—and have received awards from the San Francisco Ad Club, New York Art Directors Club, and the Western Art Directors Club. Michael attended the Paier College of Art, and received his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Before joining Chronicle Books in 1991, he worked for 10 years with Landor Associates, directing corporate identity projects in their San Francisco, London, and Hong Kong offices. He has guest-lectured on design at San Jose State University, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and the Stanford Publishing Course. Also, he has taught design at California College of the Arts. He collects 20th-century first editions and is a member of the board of directors of the Center for the Art of Translation. In 2016 Michael was made a Fellow of the AIGA San Francisco chapter for his contributions to the design community.


Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer and writer. A former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Eye and Communications Arts magazine, she is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale and a recent laureate of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame. Jessica received both her BA and MFA from Yale University where she has taught since 1994. In 2013, she won the AIGA medal.