COLLINS Wins TDC67 Communication Design Best in Show For San Francisco Symphony Brand Identity

Branding identity work by COLLINS San Francisco on behalf of the San Francisco Symphony was named Best in Show in the Type Directors Club 67th Communications Design awards.  

The announcement, along with TDC Judge’s Choices and Student Monetary Awards winners, was made on the opening day of The One Club for Creativity’s global Creative Week 2021.

The San Francisco Symphony is a 108-year old international cultural touchstone with a deep legacy of rewriting the rules to advance the orchestral arts.  COLLINS was invited to help define and express a new vision for the future of classical music under visionary conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, the symphony’s music director.

As the Symphony experiments, an ever-evolving visual system brings to life the music itself.  Working with type foundry Dinamo Basel, COLLINS used responsive and variable font technology to add unexpected contemporary behavior, giving each typographic character the ability to immediately change form in reaction to sound and music. 

“Thirty-five years ago, as a blundering novice, my team was honored with the very first creative award I really wanted my team to win. It was from the Type Directors Club,” said Brian Collins, chief creative officer, COLLINS.  “And 35 years later, for our team to be awarded any recognition from the TDC remains an uncommon achievement.” 

He added: “But over this past difficult year, it is not only a blessing, but an unfathomable gift that our work with the remarkable San Francisco Symphony was selected as Best in Show.  On behalf of everyone at COLLINS in San Francisco, we want to thank all of the judges of this year’s exhibition for thinking so highly of our work.”

TDC Judge’s Choices

Each year, TDC announces the top selection of awards entries from individual jury members.  Judge’s Choices for 2021, followed by the jury member who made the pick, are as follows.

TDC67 Communication Design Judge’s Choice:

  • “Have I Ever Told You Black Lives Matter” by Champions Design New York for Tilbury House Publishers in Books (selected by TDC juror Leandro Assis, artist, art director, Lebassis, Rio de Janeiro)
  • “The All-Seeing Eye” by The New York Times Magazine in Editorial (Joyce N. Ho, motion designer, New York)
  • “The Culture Issue” by The New York Times Magazine in Editorial (Jason Sfetko, senior designer, Nike, Portland)
  • “Madre” by Voice Adelaide for Madre in Identity/Branding (Jason Ramirez, designer, art director, Penguin Publishing Group, New York)
  • “The Cup Brand Identity“ by GrandArmy New York for The Cup in Identity/Branding (Melissa Deckert, cofounder, Party of One Studio, Brooklyn)
  • “Saari LogoType” by Renan Vizzotto, Parma, Italy for Saari Chocolate in Logotype (Marta Cerda Alimbau, designer, typographer, Barcelona)
  • “Perry Mason” by Shine Studio Los Angeles for HBO in Movie Titles/Feature Film/Opening Titles (Leland Maschmeyer, chief creative officer, New York)

24TDC Typeface Design Judge’s Choices:

  • “LiebeHeide Color Font” by Ulrike Rausch Berlin for LiebeFonts (Sandra Garcia, cofounder, designer, art director, Tipas Type, Mexico City)
  • “Coca-Cola Care Font” by Yin Qiu, Jia Yang, and Yichao Xu, CoolCharacter and FounderType, Shanghai and Beijing, for Coca-Cola China (Ryoko Nishizuka, principal designer of Japanese typography, Adobe, Tokyo)
  • “Vazeh Classic Quranic Typeface” by Reza Bakhtiarifard and Omid Emamian Tehran for Ofogh Rooydad Co. (Nadine Chahine, principal, ArabicType Ltd., London)
  • “Huai” by Potch Auacherdkul° Bangkok (Agyei Archer, designer, art director, Agyei Design, Woodbrook (Trinidad and Tobago)
  • “SF Symbols 2” by Apple Design Team Cupertino (Peter Bil’ak, cofounder, Typotheque, The Hague)
  • “MASADA Hebrew/Latin Extended Type Family” by Michal Sahar, Hagilda Tel Aviv (Noël Leu, cofounder, Grilli Type, Lucerne)

TDC Student Monetary Awards were also announced.

TDC67 winners: 

  • 1st Place $1,000 — Troy Vasilakis, Fashion Institute of Technology New York, 
  • design and writing for “This is not you.”
  • 2nd Place $500 — Shuchen Xu, ArtCenter College of Design Pasadena, design for “Craigslist Rebranding”
  • 3rd Place $300 — Akshita Chandra, Maryland Institute College of Art Baltimore, design for “Breathe”

24TDC winner:

  • 1st Place $1,000 — Ruggero MagrÏ, TypeMedia, Royal Academy of Art (KABK) Den Haag, type design for “Gesto”

TDC67, now in its 67th year, is all about how letterforms are used, recognizing typographic excellence and innovation along with the art and craft of typography and design.  24TDC, in its 24th year, focuses on how letterforms are drawn, and celebrates new typeface designs in all global languages.  Both competitions have professional and student categories, and receive entries from 57 countries.

A total of 274 TDC Certificates of Typographic Excellence — 254 for TDC67 and 20 for 24TDC — were awarded this year and are featured in a special showcase, which can be viewed here.  

This year’s winners represent 39 countries, with the US leading the way with 122 winners, followed by Germany with 25, mainland China with 19 and Canada with 13. The winners will be published in the TDC annual, The World’s Best Typography®, Typography 42.

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 first editions 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.  

Creative Week 2021 sponsors include Shutterstock, Verizon and Working Not Working.