TDC Bolsters 2022 Advisory Board Diversity With Seven New Members

The Type Directors Club, the world’s leading typography organization, has further enhanced existing diversity within its leadership with the announcement of seven new TDC Advisory Board members.

Starting two-year terms this month, the new members of the volunteer Advisory Board are:

  • Douglas Davis, strategist, author, professor, City University of New York, New York 
  • Maria Doreuli, president, creative director, Contrast Foundry, Sunnyvale CA
  • Kimya Ghandi, type designer, Mota Italic, Berlin
  • Kara Gordon, type designer, Commercial Type, New York
  • Elaine Lopez, designer, educator, Pratt Institute, New York
  • Sol Matas, independent type designer, Berlin
  • Trisha Tan, design director, Frog, New York 

Continuing on the TDC Advisory Board are:

  • Paul Carlos, principal, Pure+Applied, adjunct faculty, Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York
  • Manija Emran, founder, creative director, Me & the Bootmaker, Los Angeles
  • Zelda Harrison, principal, ZHarrison & Associates/ZELDESIGN, Los Angeles
  • Jon Key, founder, Morcos Key, New York
  • John Kudos, managing partner, KUDOS Design Collaboratory, KASA Collective, New York
  • Saki Mafundikwa, founder, director, Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts (ZIVA), Harare
  • Joe Newton, designer, illustrator, educator, Anderson Newton Design, New York
  • Christopher Sergio, vice president, group creative director, Henry Holt & Co/Macmillan Publishers, New York (also represents TDC on The One Club’s Board of Directors)

The diversity of the board extends well beyond where they are currently based, as many  members are from, or active in, a number of other regions. For example, Maria Doreuli is from Russia, Kimya Ghandi is from India, Sol Matas is from Argentina, Manija Emran is from Afghanistan, and Trisha Tan is from Malaysia. 

Rounding out the TDC team are two full-time staffers: Carol Wahler continues in her long-standing role as TDC executive director, and Ksenya Samarskaya, who was recently named to the new role of managing director.  

Part of The One Club for Creativity, the world’s foremost non-profit organization whose mission is to support the global creative community, TDC is run as an autonomous organization. The TDC Advisory Board serves to ideate, provide feedback, keep the organization relevant, and connect to different markets and demographics within the global type community.

The Advisory Board also ensures consistent application and continuation of TDC’s anti-racist pledge, which involves proactively seeking women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ designers to become members, awards program judges, event speakers and Board members, as well as providing them with ways to showcase their work to the global community.

“There’s such immense drive, rigor of thought, and sense of alignment with the incoming board members,” said Samarskaya. “The range of experiences and backgrounds—the different paths that led them to type and to the TDC—is what allows us to make sure that whatever we tackle contains broad relevance to both our members and to the greater public.”

Established in New York in 1946, today the TDC is a global organization celebrating the power of typography. The TDC serves an international community united by the shared belief that type drives culture and culture drives type.  The organization runs the esteemed TDC Communication Design and TDC Typeface Design competitions, the Ascenders Awards for rising designers, produces The World’s Best Typography® annual, coordinates traveling global exhibitions of award-winning work, offers scholarship programs and hosts talks, conferences, and workshops.

TDC became part of The One Club in October 2020.  The One Club uses revenue generated from entries to its global awards shows — including The One Show, ADC Annual Awards, Young Ones Student Awards, Young Guns and others — and puts it back into the industry to fund programs under its four pillars: Education, Inclusion & Diversity, Gender Equality and Creative Development.  

These programs include the annual Where Are All The Black People diversity conference and career fair, ONE School free portfolio program for Black creatives, ONE Production free food styling training for diverse creatives, Creative Boot Camps for diverse college students, Right the Ratio Summits addressing gender equality, Global Educators Summits, Creative Leaders Retreats, mentorship programs for more than 200 young creatives each year, bi-annual Saturday Career Workshops for high school students, and more.