Type Directors Club Announces Changes for Annual Competition as TDC69 Kicks Off

The Type Directors Club, the world’s leading typography organization and part of The One Club for Creativity, announces significant expansion in accepted work and a host of additional changes to its annual awards with today’s opening of TDC69 Annual Competition call for entries.

Previously divided into two competitions, one each for Communications Design and Typeface Design, the program is now a single competition under this year’s umbrella of TDC69, consisting of three disciplines: Type Design, Typography, and, for the first time, Lettering.

The new dedicated discipline for Lettering is for work where the letters were created or modified.  This includes contemporary lettering, traditional calligraphy, sign painting, wordmarks and custom logos, digital or analogue distortions, eccentric display typefaces, and more.  This new discipline has its own dedicated jury, made up of some of the world’s leading lettering practitioners and experts.

The Type Design discipline is for entries showcasing the design of typefaces.  New this year, it also allows for entries of any thematically applicable code or software, such as software for creating or generating type.

The third discipline, Typography, is the broadest one.  It encompasses any design or creation that uses type, lettering, or written language as a significant element, and is an expansion of what was previously the TDC Communications Design discipline. Typography includes graphic design, UI/UX, environmental design or architecture with typographic elements, film, animation and motion design, social media campaigns, new media, and anything else where typography is used.

To be eligible, work must have been produced or published in the 2022 calendar year.  Early bird deadline for entry is November 22, 2022, with entry fees increasing for the regular deadline of January 17, 2023, and final deadline on March 3, 2023.  More details can be found on the entry site.

This year’s awards competitions continues TDC’s commitment to expanding the level of diversity and representation in its juries.  This year’s juries by discipline are as follows:

Lettering 

Hussein Alazaat, director ALAZAAT Design Studio, Amman

Lauren Hom, Letterer & Illustrator, Hom Sweet Hom, Detroit

Ximena Jiménez, lettering and street artist, Bogotá

Milo Kossowski, creative lead, Mother, New York

Seb Lester, artist, designer, Lewes (UK)

Giorgia Lupi, partner, Pentagram, New York

Nick Misani, designer, letterer, Oxford (UK)

Huston Wilson, director, Hust Wilson Ltd., Johannesburg

Typography

Chon Hin Au, founder, creative director, Untitled Macao, Macao

Simon Charwey, founder, African Design Matters, Charwey Studios, Accra (Ghana)/New Haven (US)

Angira Chokshi, associate experience designer, EMEA, BORN Group, London

Diana Haj-Ahmad, senior design lead, IDEO, San Francisco

David Jalbert-Gagnier, creative director, head of NY Experience Design, Frog, New York/Paris

Halle Kho, VP Design, SAP, New York

Lynda Lucas, design lead, Cash App Labs, New York

Erika Reyes Angel, senior creative, art director, AKQA, Los Angeles

Type Design

Naïma Ben Ayed, type and graphic designer, Naïma Ben Ayed Bureau, London

Linda Hintz, type designer, Copenhagen

Kateryna Korolevtsev, brand designer, art director, type designer, Kyiv

Vinod Nair, designer, educator, designer, Kuala Lumpur

Parimal Parmar, independent type designer, New Delhi

Yanghee Ryu, type designer, Cambridge (UK)

Anuthin Wongsunkakon, partner, Cadson Demak, Bangkok

Led by Ksenya Samarskaya, TDC managing director, this year’s competition committee included TDC Advisory Board members Trisha Tan in New York, and Kimya Gandhi in Berlin.  The trio oversaw TDC69 branding, which stems from organic shapes and movements, and exemplifies how type can embody concepts large and small, including our connection to natural systems. 

Lettering for the TDC69 branding campaign, with elements in both English and Japanese, was created by designer Ryu Mieno, based in Kyoto, and brought to life with animations by Federica Caso, in Madrid.  The website was developed by Eric Jacobsen, based in Brooklyn, and paired with The One Club’s entry system.

“Our aim is to make the TDC competition as relevant to the greater typographic culture as possible,” said Samarskaya.  “We’re excited to accept and celebrate entries in more disciplines and styles than ever before, aligning with the fact that typography really is everywhere.  Our incredible global jury brings cultural nuance and a wide range of opinions and expertise to the competition, and will offer insights on more writing systems and regional semiotics than at any time in TDC’s 76-year history.”

Please visit the TDC69 entry site for more information and to enter this year’s competition.

The One Club for Creativity, producer of The One Show, ADC Annual Awards, Type Directors Club competition, TDC Ascenders, Young Guns, Young Ones student awards and more, is the world’s foremost non-profit organization whose mission is to support and celebrate the global creative community.  Revenue generated from entries to its global awards shows goes back into the industry to fund programming under the organization’s four pillars: Education, Inclusion & Diversity, Gender Equality, and Creative Development.