Celebrating NHS superheroes with the Spring Cover Competition winner

The winner of the first-ever Big Issue Spring cover competition has been revealed.

In her winning entry, seven-year-old Aria Burn, from Bracknell, paid tribute to the NHS with a colourful superhero-themed design.

“I was thinking about the doctors and nurses being like superheroes and the rainbow letters were because of the NHS,” Aria told us.

“My sister Coco has asthma and doctors are helping her. It makes me happy that they’re making her better.”

While her cover celebrates all NHS workers, Aria says that she has a hero in her own family. Her mum Clare works for a clinical research company and is working on vaccine trials at the moment.

Editor of The Big Issue, Paul McNamee, said: “Congratulations to Aria. It’s a brilliant cover. It was very tricky to decide as there were so many wonderful ideas and designs. We thank everybody who took time to send us their entries. They are joyous.”

Head judge, illustrator Dapo Adeola, said: “All the entries were sooooo good and more importantly so different. It was really tough narrowing things down out of all the work from such promising young artists.”

He added that Aria’s talent shows she could have a creative career in her future: “Of all the entries, this one really shows a great sense of composition and it manages to say what it’s saying in a simple, fun and bright way. The sense of design on display here speaks to a promising future in illustration.”

Aria, a huge Harry Potter fan, wins a bundle of 80 classic books from Puffin.

Look out for Aria’s amazing picture on the cover of The Big Issue, dropping through your letterbox – or on sale in your local supermarket – from 18 June.