Celebrating the Winners of the 2025 Design a National Book Token Competition!

The annual Design a National Book Token competition returned for World Book Day 2025 — and once again, children from the UK and Ireland amazed us with their creativity, imagination, and love of reading. This year’s theme, ‘Read Your Way’, encouraged young designers to reflect on what reading means to them, in all its forms.

We were thrilled to receive so many fantastic entries that brought the theme to life. A huge congratulations goes to Ethan, age 15, who was chosen as the overall winner by our special guest judge — bestselling Bunny vs Monkey author and illustrator, Jamie Smart!

As part of his prize, Ethan wins a £10 National Book Token for every child in his class, featuring his winning design, and a trip to a local bookshop to enjoy spending their gift cards together. We hope you all have a brilliant time choosing your next great reads!

Winners and runners-up were chosen in three age categories: Up to 8 years, 9–12 years, and 13–16 years, and the creativity on display was outstanding. 

Here’s what Jamie Smart had to say about this year’s incredible designs:

WINNERS

UP TO 8 YEARS: Reva, 8

“There’s so much going on in this design, it’s so fun! And the choice of colours is really clever.”

9-12 YEARS CATEGORY WINNER: Jasper, 9

“Such a great, immediate design, and the way it’s framed at an angle is inspired!”

13-16 YEARS CATEGORY AND OVERALL WINNER: Ethan, 15

“For me, this was our winner! The idea is really funny, the characters are great, and I can absolutely picture it as a gift card. Brilliant work!”

RUNNERS-UP

UP TO 8 YEARS RUNNER-UP: Grace, 7

“What an amazing picture! Really beautiful, and the characters are so cute!”

9-12 YEARS RUNNER-UP: Harriet, 11

“It’s hard to convey big ideas in small spaces, but this does it magnificently. Brilliantly epic!”

13-16 YEARS RUNNER-UP: Ankita, 15

“It feels like there’s a whole story waiting to be told from this one image, I really hope it will be. Such a great picture.”

We’re so proud of every young artist who took part – thank you for celebrating books and reading choices in such a creative way.

If you’re looking to reward and inspire the children at your school, the National Book Tokens Presentation Card is the perfect solution. Bringing together all the benefits of a National Book Tokens gift card into a certificate-style presentation card, this is an all-in-one solution for your end-of-term rewards, one-off certificates of achievement and prizes. Just like their innovative personalised gift cards, you can use your school’s crest or logo, and add your own text, to create meaningful and memorable rewards.

Visit the National Book Tokens site for more information about their rewards and incentives, or get in touch with their team to see how they can help you inspire and encourage reading for pleasure at your school.

Find out more here.