Pentagram And The New York Times Magazine Are Top Type Directors Club Competition Winners

Mar. 30, 2022

The Type Directors Club, the world's leading typography organization, announced the winners for its two premier global professional awards programs — TDC68 Communication Design and 25TDC Typeface Design competitions — and the Young Ones TDC student awards.

TDC68 Communication Design recognizes how letterforms are used, honoring typographic excellence and innovation along with the art and craft of typography and design.  25TDC Typeface Design focuses on how letterforms are drawn, celebrating new typeface designs worldwide.  All of this year’s winning work can be viewed on the winners showcase.

Pentagram New York led the way with seven TDC68 Certificates of Typographic Excellence wins for exemplary work on behalf of Ben's Best (packaging), Berkeley Rep (identity, branding), Google Arts & Culture ("Plastic Air" website, Gwangju Biennale (exhibits, signage), International Center of Photography (identity, branding), National Women's History Museum (identity, branding), and Wilson Center ("Science Stack: Tools Within Reach" website).

The New York Times Magazine won four certificates, including two for The New York Times for Kids ("Trick or Treat?" and "The Money Issue") and two for the magazine ("The Music Issue" March 14, "Full Issue" and "The Excavations of Pedro Almodovar", Dec 19 Opener").

Tied with three TDC68 certificates each were Daniel Frumhoff Design New York, Havas New York (all for "The Issue Inside the Issue" on behalf of the Ali Forney Center), M-N Associates Ho Chi Minh City (all for PetChoy "Spark the New Choy’?"), Mucho San Francisco, Principle Montreal, Studio Bang-Gu San Francisco, and Sunday Afternoon New York (all for Canal Magazine). 

The Hague-based Typotheque was the top 25TDC Typeface Design winner with three certificates, one each for Greta Armenian, Lava Syllabics, and November Tamil.

Winning two 25TDC certificates each were Apple Cupertino, FounderType Beijing, HYS Design Redmond, Interval Type Paris, Klim Type Foundry Auckland, Omega Type Foundry London, and TypeMates in Berlin and Bratislava.

A highlight for this year was the expanded 25TDC Typeface Design competition, which for the first time included dedicated categories and expert judges for Arabic, Indic, and Chinese/Japanese/Korean. The competition has always accepted entries for those scripts; this expansion of dedicated categories and additional judges was prompted by the increased number of entries for these scripts in recent years.

ArtCenter College of Design Pasadena was awarded 17 certificates in this year's Young Ones TDC student awards, including five won by Jincheng Shi.  School of Visual Arts New York picked up nine, including two by Jaeyou Chung.  China Academy of Art Hangzhou, HSE Art and Design School Moscow, and Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts Shanghai each won two certificates.

Entries for all the competitions were received from 63 countries.  There were 202 winners from 36 countries in TDC68, 29 winners from 13 countries for 25TDC, and 58 winners from nine countries in this year's Young One's TDC student awards.  Winners represent 36 countries, with the US leading the way with 66, followed by China with 35, Germany with 24, Switzerland with 11, and Netherlands with 10.

Winners were selected by a diverse jury of 27 leading designers and type designers from a dozen countries, reflecting TDC's ongoing commitment to increase the level of diversity and representation in all aspects of its programming, membership, and on its Advisory Board.  

TDC68 and 25TDC winners receive a TDC Certificate of Typographic Excellence and a digital tag certifying their work is among the world’s best of the year.  Winning work will be featured in the highly respected TDC Annual, The World’s Best Typography®, and showcased in exhibits that travel to museums, schools, and design organizations around the world. 

TDC will unveil this year's Best of Show and Judge's Choice winners on July 13, 2022, at the opening of its annual exhibition of winning work at 41 Cooper Square Art Gallery at Cooper Union in New York.  The exhibition will then travel to 20 cities in seven countries.

TDC68 and 25TDC competitions were supported by a striking branding campaign designed by TDC member Tereza Bettinardi, based in São Paulo, which creatively explores the "counterspaces" or inner parts of letters.Typefaces for the campaign were Proxy by Commercial Type and ABC Laica by Dinamo, both of which were generously donated by the foundries.

Established in 1946 in New York, TDC celebrates and amplifies the power of typography and serves as a global community united by the shared belief that type drives culture and culture drives type.  The competition was established in 1955.

This year marks the second edition of these typography awards competitions since the announcement of TDC's merger with The One Club for Creativity, the world's foremost nonprofit organization whose mission is to support and celebrate the global creative community.