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Jack Smyth

@jack_flag

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Dublin 🇮🇪
Design & Illustration.
Designer of the Year 2024, The British Book Awards.
Free Palestine.

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I'm still recovering from the surprise of winning the award for Designer of the Year at the British Book Awards on Monday evening.

The shortlist was full of brilliant designers, all of whom do work I really admire. I was certain that one of my peers would win, which led to zero speech prep until about 4 minutes before the award, so apologies to anyone who heard my shonky mumbling into the mic on the night.

Huge thanks must go to Donna Payne and @gray.318 for making this award happen, and to Danny Arter for championing design at the Bookseller. Thanks to the @a.b.cover.d and @beckychilcott for building a thriving book cover design community.

The awards were a reminder of how integral book cover design is within publishing, and its a good reminder to us to celebrate it whenever we can.

Thanks to all the designers, art directors, editors and authors who work with me.

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#nibbies by @jack_flag

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2 years ago

Our exciting speaker lineup is here! 🎉

Join us for the TUS 50th Anniversary Design Conference on 22 October 2026 at the Athlone campus. We’re delighted to welcome:

🎤 Prof. Jeremy Myerson
🎤 Annie Atkins
🎤 Oscar Torrans
🎤 Matt Lamont
🎤 Jack Smyth
🎤 Noelle Cooper
🎤 Colin Farmer
🎤 Elaine O’Neill

Come celebrate 50 years of design education in Athlone, reconnect with the design community and hear from our speakers about the future of design.

🎟️ Tickets are free, but places are limited. Book yours now through the link in our bio!

@annieatkins
@oscartorrans
@unthink_ie
@jack_flag
@_mattlamont
@tus_athlone by @jack_flag

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4 days ago

Jack Smyth

Jack Smyth is a freelance Designer, Art Director and Illustrator from Dublin who mostly designs book covers and illustrates editorial pieces. His clients include Penguin Random House, Faber & Faber, Simon & Schuster, The New Yorker, and A Post.

His work has been featured in It’s Nice That, Creative Review, Print Magazine, The New York Times and the 100 Archive.

He has won 9 Academy of British Cover Design Awards, and was named the Designer of the Year at the British Book Awards in 2024.

@jack_flag/ taken in Technological University of the Shannon, Athlone by @jack_flag

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5 days ago

Stamp designs for An Post, celebrating Modern Irish Literary Fiction.

It is an honor to have been commissioned by @anpostofficial to design these four stamps to celebrate the amazing writing that comes out of Ireland. The stamps feature four great novels of the 21st Century, all of which have been adapted into films.

That They May Face The Rising Sun by John McGahern

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín

Room by Emma Donoghue

It's a very special and rare thing to be able to contribute to these. Working at this small scale has been a challenge and a joy, and a huge thanks has to go to Brona McDonagh and Dave Mulholland at An Post for their help and collaboration.

What a dream project. And thank you to Rick O'Shea for comparing the launch last night with a wonderful panel including Colm Tóibín, Sarah Kenny and Catherine Magee. by @jack_flag

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8 days ago

Cover for X+Y=K by Ciaran Carson, out today via @lilliputpress

Art direction by Stephen Reid. by @jack_flag

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16 days ago

Illustration for Becca Rothfield's piece on Rachel Cusk in The New Yorker entitled 'Vanishing Act', in print and online this week.

Huge thank you as always to Art Director Supriya Kalidas.

@supriyakalidas
@newyorkerart
@newyorkermag by @jack_flag

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a month ago

Illustration for Ben Lerner's fiction piece 'The Readers' for The New Yorker.

Huge thanks to Art Director Supriya Kalidas.

Also thanks to @_tometherington for the snaps as the one shop in Ireland that stocks the New Yorker didn't have this edition!

@supriyakalidas
@newyorkermag
@newyorkerart by @jack_flag

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3 months ago

Cover design for Experts In A Dying Field by Patrick Freyne, out today via @penguinbooksireland

By chance I met Patrick for the first time on the day that I finished reading his manuscript (ostensibly about Dublin musicians) at a gig in Dublin. It felt fittingly serendipitous, and who knows, there may have been a fox watching us chat from some way in the distance.

Art Direction by the excellent @josiestillustration
Thank you Josie!

@freynepatrick

🦊 by @jack_flag

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4 months ago

Two new covers for Ben Pester, one for his new book Sail Away Land which is out today and one for the paperback of his previous novel The Expansion Project.

Art Direction by @wasley.sarah
@benjamin.pester
@grantabooks by @jack_flag

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4 months ago

Illustration to accompany Becca Rothfeld's essay 'Why the American Novel Refused to Grow Up' for The New Yorker.

The essay examines Leslie Fiedler's book 'Love and Death In The American Novel' in which Fiedler argues that American fiction is defined by a pathological obsession with death, violence and escape, stemming from an inability to portray adult sexuality.

Art Direction by Supriya Kalidas.
Thank you Supriya!

@supriyakalidas
@newyorkermag
@newyorkerart by @jack_flag

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4 months ago

Illustration for David Sedaris' latest piece in The New Yorker about keeping his marriage to Hugh a secret.

"Afterward we thanked the magistrate and the white-haired stranger who acted as our second witness. Then we went with our banker to a sad sandwich place for lunch."

Art Direction by @supriyakalidas

Thanks Supriya!

@davidsedarisbooks
@newyorkermag
@newyorkerart by @jack_flag

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4 months ago

Cover for My Lover, The Rabbi by @wayne.koestenbaum out today on @grantabooks .

AD: @wasley.sarah

Title type is the exquisite Caslon Ionic by @commercialtype by @jack_flag

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6 months ago