After receiving entries in the TDC65 competitions from students and professionals from all over the world, the Type Directors Club is gearing up for Judges’ Weekend. To get ready, we’d like to acknowledge the group of designers who have agreed to come to New York City the weekend of January 18 to select the best typography in the world at Fordham University and pick our student winners.

As a bonus, we would like to invite everyone to join us at our 2019 Judges Night at Parsons the New School for Design, where you will get to meet Karin Fong and Kristyan Sarkis, hear about their work, and ask them questions about type trends. Click here for tickets and times.

TDC 2019 TYPEFACE DESIGN JUDGES

Tobias Frere-Jones, Frere-Jones Type

Tobias Frere-Jones has created some of the world’s most widely used typefaces, including Interstate, Whitney, Gotham, Surveyor, and Tungsten. He received a BFA in Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1992 and joined the faculty of the Yale University School of Art in 1996. His work is in the permanent collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2006, he received the Gerrit Noordzij Prijs for his contributions to typographic design, writing, and education. In 2013, he received the AIGA Medal in recognition of exceptional achievements in the field of design. Tobias launched his new type design practice, Frere-Jones Type, in January 2015.

Frere-Jones Type: Website | Instagram | Twitter

Nicole Dotin, Process Type Foundry

Nicole Dotin is a typeface designer and partner at the Process Type Foundry, an independent type design studio based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Nicole holds an MFA in visual studies from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and an MA in typeface design from the University of Reading, UK. After designing Elena, a low-contrast serif typeface for extended reading, she went on to design Pique, a brush script modeled after her own marker techniques. When not designing typefaces, she enjoys giving workshops to help others learn to code and is involved with the Alphabettes, a loose network that aims to support and promote the work of women in lettering, typography, and type design.

Process Type Foundry: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

Kristyan Sarkis, TPTQ Arabic

Born in Beirut and based in Amsterdam, Kristyan Sarkis is a type and graphic designer. After receiving his master in Type & Media from the Royal Academy of Art (The Hague) in 2010, he started his own design studio in the Netherlands. In 2015, he co-founded TPTQ Arabic, a type foundry specialized in high-quality Arabic fonts. In 2016, he co-founded Arabic Type Design—Beirut, the first educational program dedicated to the subject. He has taught at the Type & Media master program since 2015 and the design master program at ESAV Marrakech since 2016. His work has received several awards including the Type Directors Club Certificate of Typographic Excellence in 2011, 2012, 2016 and 2017.

TPTQ Arabic: Website | Facebook | Twitter

Erin McLaughlin, Fontwala

Erin McLaughlin is a typeface designer and consultant specializing in South Asian writing systems. She has developed custom Indic script fonts for Adobe, Google, IBM, and StarTV India, as well as independent type foundries like Bold Monday, Lineto, and Type Together. Previously, she worked as a typeface designer at Hoefler & Frere-Jones, after graduating from the MATD program at the University of Reading, UK. She has spoken at TypoDay India, TypeCon, and now serves as a SOTA board member. Through her new venture, Fontwala, she aims to mentor and partner with other designers to build a library of high-quality fonts for Indian languages.

Follow Erin McLaughlin online: Website | Instagram | Twitter

TDC65 COMMUNICATION DESIGN JUDGES

Karin Fong, Imaginary Forces

Karin Fong is an Emmy Award winning director and designer working at the intersection of film, television, and graphic design. A founding member of Imaginary Forces, she is known for designing iconic title sequences. Her projects include the opening credits for the TV series Boardwalk Empire, South Park, and Black Sails, and most recently Lost In Space and Counterpart, as well as numerous feature films. She has helmed spots for major brands, including LEGO, Lexus, Target, Sony PlayStation, Toyota, and Herman Miller.

From large-scale video installations to video game trailers, Karin’s diverse projects showcase her unique voice in visual storytelling. Named by Fast Company as one of its 100 Most Creative People in Business and the recipient of the 2018 AIGA medal, she has won numerous awards in both advertising and entertainment. Her work has been featured at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, The Walker Art Center, The Wexner Center, SXSW, and in many publications about design and cinema.

Imaginary Forces: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

Leo Jung, California Sunday Magazine

Leo Jung is Creative Director for the acclaimed live series Pop-Up Magazine and The California Sunday Magazine, which won the Society of Publication Design’s award for Magazine of the Year in 2018. He is the former design director at Wired and deputy art director at The New York Times Magazine. His work has been recognized by the Art Directors Club, Type Directors Club, and the Society of Publication Designers.

Follow Leo Jung online: Website | Instagram | Twitter

Eddie Opara, Pentagram

Eddie Opara is a multi-faceted designer whose work encompasses strategy, design and technology. He is a partner in the New York office of Pentagram, where his projects have included the design of brand identity, publications, packaging, environments, exhibitions, interactive installations, websites, user interfaces and software, with many ranging across multiple media. His clients have included Samsung, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian National Design Museum, Nike, Quinnipiac University, Grace Farms, the Menil Foundation, The Baffler, Halstead, the Studio Museum in Harlem, Queens Museum, the Corcoran Group, New York University and Morgan Stanley.

Opara was born in Wandsworth, London, and studied graphic design at the London College of Printing and Yale University. He began his career as a designer at ATG, Imaginary Forces and 2×4, and ran his own studio, The Map Office, before joining Pentagram in 2010. He is a senior critic at the Yale University School of Art and a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale. His work is represented in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. He is the author of Color Works (Rockport, 2014). He is the recipient of many awards and has been featured in Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business, Ebony Magazine’s Power 100 and Adweek’s Creative 100.

Pentagram: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

Paulina Reyes, Refinery 29

Portraits of Paulina Reyes at her home.

Paulina Reyes is the VP of Photo and Design at Refinery 29 in New York City. Over the last 20 years, Paulina has lent her creative expertise to prestigious companies, including: Plated, Mother New York, Collins, Kate Spade, Duffy Design, and Laurie DeMartino Design. In addition to her full-time work, Paulina has taught illustration at MCAD in Minneapolis and design at SVA in NYC. Paulina’s eclectic background has earned her recognitions from organizations such as ADC (Young Guns), Print Magazine (New Visual Artists), TDC, AIGA. Her work has been exhibited in national and international museums such as The Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City, The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and the Museo de Artes Populares in Mexico City where she’s from.

Follow Paulina Reyes online: Website | Instagram

Ian Spalter, Instagram

Ian Spalter is Head of Design at Instagram, where he leads the team responsible for all things design ranging from cross-platform app experiences to brand & identity. Ian was previously a Sr. UX Manager at YouTube, and prior to that, Director of UX & Design at Foursquare. Ian also spent four years at R/GA where he oversaw design development projects such as the Nike+ Fuelband and Nike Running, Basketball, and Training products. Ian was born and raised in New Rochelle, New York and graduated from Hampshire College.

Instagram: Website

Annik Troxler

Annik Troxler is a Swiss graphic designer born 1979 in Willisau. She studied graphic design at the ECAL in Lausanne; now she works in the cultural field and teaches at the Basel School of Design. With a strong focus on content, narrative and visual quality, Annik Troxler creates posters and visual identities that use typography and images in unusual ways. Her design methods combine a significant use of playful techniques and experimentation but a strong connection to the minimalistic functionalism is still apparent. Annik Troxler gives lectures and workshops in Europe and abroad and she has won several prizes such as in 2006 the Grand Prix of the International Poster Triennale of the Museum of Modern Art Toyama and the first prize at the International Poster Festival in Chaumont in 2007.

Follow Annik Troxler online: Website

Zipeng Zhu, Dazzle

Zipeng Zhu is a Chinese-born designer, art director, illustrator and animator in New York City who wants to make everyday a razzle-dazzle musical. His clients include Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Netflix, Viacom, The New Yorker, Fox, CNN, Refinery29, Chobani, and Samsung. After he graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, he has worked at Pentagram and Sagmeister & Walsh. He was one of the Art Directors Club Young Guns 13 winners and has been recognized as Print magazine’s New Visual Artist and The One Show Young Ones. He has recently started his own creative studio Dazzle to make everything dazzling.

Follow Zipeng online: Website | Twitter | Instagram