Type Directors Club thanks the École de Communication Visuelle (ECV) Lille for the French debut of the "World's Best Typography" exhibition, which features award-winning work of the club's 65th Annual Communications Design and 2019 Typeface Design competition.

The "World's Best Typography" exhibition includes over 280 selections of winning work from the TDC’s annual international typeface design competition and communication design competition selected by an international jury of top designers.

The exhibition displays typography in a wide range of categories including books, posters, corporate branding, logos, web graphics, film and TV titles, products, and magazines from many countries including the United States, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the People's Republic of China, South Korea, and others.

This TDC65 exhibition is open daily from 1:00pm to 6:00 pm. This is the first stop on the tour as the show travels through France.

Keep up with the exhibition opening and photos on ECV Lille's Instagram feed @ecv_lille

The identity for this exhibition was created by Clementine Wiart, Caroline Moeneclaey, and Morgane Borowczyk, third-year design students at the ECV Lille campus.

#TDC65

The Type Directors Club warmly welcomes the latest addition to New York City’s thriving museum community, Poster House, an institution devoted to the history and art of one of the most popular forms of graphic and typographic design. Poster House opens its new permanent space to the public on June 20. We also want to give special recognition to the TDC members who are adding their talents to this graphic design showcase, and share details on a new collaborative initiative.

When we dropped by at the press preview, construction and last-minute touches were still underway, but we were able to see the beautiful interiors by the New York architectural firm of Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis that open up the museum’s space from 23rd to 24th Street and create a welcoming lower level — 15,000 square feet in all.

Paula Scher of Pentagram, a TDC Medalist, designed the identity for Poster House, which frames the museum’s windows at its 119 West 23rd Street location.

Concrete-like wall panels — possibly signifying the street — bifurcate the ground floor lengthwise, making it hard to remember that this space was once occupied by Tekserve, the fondly-remembered computer repair business that resuscitated many of our early Apple computers. This dramatic architectural transformation revives a beloved city space that has sat empty since Tekserve’s 2016 closing.

On the west side of the long wall, visitors can circulate and explore digital interactives designed by Kasa, a design collective co-run by John Kudos, a TDC member. Near the Poster House entrance (and visible from the street), visitors are able to superimpose an image of themselves onto iconic posters. Further within the gallery, visitors can interact with an 82-inch 4K touchscreen to explore a sampling of the Poster House's archive.

One of the interactive displays by Kasa in which visitors can access a small portion of the Poster House's growing archive. Photo by Samuel Morgan Photography, courtesy of Kasa.

The east side of the long wall features two galleries. For Poster House’s debut, the larger gallery features an extraordinary body of work by the famed Czech Art Nouveau illustrator Alphonse Mucha, on loan from the Richard Fuxa Foundation. Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau/Nouvelle Femme contains 84 posters that represent much of the work Mucha created for the theater during his years in Paris, including his popular posters for Sarah Bernhardt, one of the most popular stage performers of the late 19th century. The exhibition continues in a second gallery downstairs.

The second “jewel box” gallery features Designing Through the Wall: Cyan in the 1990s -- twenty posters designed in the 1990s by Cyan, an East Berlin-based design collective. Both exhibitions were organized by Angelina Lippert, the museum’s chief curator, who wanted to juxtapose historic works by a singular visionary artist with more contemporary works executed through a collective approach.

The Poster House Instagram feed featuring work by Mucha, Cyan, and a poster in the children’s activity center.

The rear portion of the space offers additional opportunities for interaction and creativity, where visitors can create posters by choosing genre subjects and applying period-styles in typography, colors, and composition. Near this communal area—and one of the stars of the space—is a large, billboard poster with a Mediterranean blue background that was illustrated by Raymond Savignac for Monsavon au Lait. Downstairs, kids (or kids-at-heart) can learn about the additive CMYK printing process in a Mad Men era-inspired space.

What’s in the future?  Poster House is planning exhibitions on Ghanaian Film Posters and posters from the Women's March for fall 2019. We are also excited to announce our collaboration with Poster House – an archive of posters that we donate to serve as a record of typographic design, a research resource for TDC members and historians, and a source of inspiration to graphic and type designers.

TDC members Gail Andersen, Paula Scher, and Alexander Tochilovsky are also providing direction to Poster House as members of its advisory board.

Poster House opens on June 20 with the following hours: 11am to 6pm on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday; 11am to 9pm on Friday; and 10am to 6pm Saturday and Sunday. The museum will be closed to the public on Tuesdays.

We encourage everyone to visit Poster House, welcome them to the neighborhood, follow PH on Instagram, and keep track of all their events and exhibitions on their website at posterhouse.org.

Everyone is invited to drop in at Type Directors Club in New York to see our new exhibition, Visual Memoranda: A Selection of Posters from the IBM Poster Program 1969-1979  through August 1.

The decades following World War II ushered in an era of unprecedented growth for International Business Machines (IBM), as innovations in electronic data processing and the miniaturization of transistor-based electronics transformed the company into a multibillion-dollar colossus.

During this period, Thomas J. Watson Jr., president of IBM, sought to elevate the company’s image as a forward-thinking, technologically-advanced organization by hiring world-renowned design consultants, including Eliot Noyes, Charles and Ray Eames, and Paul Rand (who designed the instantly recognizable IBM logo and held a remarkable influence over internal staff designers.)

The IBM Poster Program was initiated in the late 1960s by staff designer Ken White, who had studied under Rand at Yale. Tom Bluhm also transferred into the team, having worked as a contract illustrator for IBM in Rochester, Minnesota. Soon, Ken’s former colleague John Anderson was also added to the staff.

Curators Robert Finkel and Shea Tillman of Auburn University have curated this beautiful show and created a companion website, which you can view here.

Take a look at the installation of the exhibition at TDC and IBM in TDC's history here.

This exhibition at TDC is open for viewing from June 6 until Thursday, August 1 by appointment only. Email director@tdc.org for an appointment from 9:00am to 3:00pm Monday through Friday. Sorry, we are closed on weekends.

Di_Mad (Asociación Diseñadores de Madrid y Fundación Diseño Madrid), Madrid's leading organization of designers and design firms, is hosting his exhibition of award-winning work at Matadero Madrid through June 30.

This exhibition is one of eight touring internationally to celebrate the World's Best Typography, as judged by a panel of internationally renowned graphic designers in January 2018.

The exhibition presents over 200 works in typeface design and communications design, chosen from 1,835 entries by some of the design industry’s most recognized mentors, innovators and thought-leaders, with work in dozens of languages. The communications design portion of the exhibition integrates both professional and student work and features typography in a wide range of forms -- books, posters, corporate branding, logos, web graphics, film and TV titles, products, and magazines.

The exhibition in Madrid is open to the public and follows several showings across Spain --in Barcelona, Sabadell, and Soria -- in addition to exhibitions in New York, South Korea, Japan, Poland, Belgium, Canada, France, Vietnam, and New Zealand in 2018 and 2019.

The exhibition will be open May 22 - 30 and June 5 - 30.

Admission is free of charge, and the exhibition is open daily -- Monday to Friday, from 4pm to 10 pm, and on Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 10pm. Read more on Di_Mad's website here.

TDC64 debuts in Madrid at Matadero Madrid on May 22, 2019. Photo: Courtesy of Di-Mad Facebook.

Graphic design: Triboro

The Type Directors Club annual that contains all of the award-winning work displayed in this exhibition is available here.

#TDC64

Samwon Specialty Paper is currently hosting the "World's Best Typography" exhibition -- the winners of the 65th Annual Communications Design and 2019 Typeface Design competition of Type Directors Club -- in a special gallery in Under Stand Avenue in Seoul, South Korea.

The "World's Best Typography" exhibition includes over 280 selections of winning work from the TDC’s annual international typeface design competition and communication design competition selected by an international jury of top designers.

The exhibition displays typography in a wide range of categories including books, posters, corporate branding, logos, web graphics, film and TV titles, products, and magazines from many countries including the United States, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the People's Republic of China, South Korea, and others.

The exhibition is on display in Seoul from May 13 through May 22.  This TDC65 exhibition is open daily from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm. This is the first stop on the tour as the show travels through Asia.

Keep up with the exhibition opening and photos here, courtesy of Samwon Paper Gallery's Instagram feed:

@samwonpaper

Graphics: Bond Creative Agency

Join us for the opening night of our new exhibition, Visual Memoranda: A Selection of Posters from the IBM Poster Program 1969-1979.  Curators Robert Finkel and Shea Tillman will be there to share their research about this corporate design venture and speak about the designers whose works are on display.

The decades following World War II ushered in an era of unprecedented growth for International Business Machines (IBM), as innovations in electronic data processing and the miniaturization of transistor-based electronics transformed the company into a multibillion-dollar colossus.

During this period, Thomas J. Watson Jr., president of IBM, sought to elevate the company’s image as a forward-thinking, technologically-advanced organization by hiring world-renowned design consultants, including Eliot Noyes, Charles and Ray Eames, and Paul Rand (who designed the instantly recognizable IBM logo and held a remarkable influence over internal staff designers.)

The IBM Poster Program was initiated in the late 1960s by staff designer Ken White, who had studied under Rand at Yale. It was also during this period that Tom Bluhm transferred into the team, having worked as a contract illustrator for IBM in Rochester, Minnesota. Shortly thereafter, Ken’s former colleague John Anderson was also added to the staff.

Website preview here.

This exhibition is open for viewing from June 6 until Thursday, August 1st, 3 p.m. by appointment only. The TDC office is closed on weekends.

An exhibition currently on view in New York City celebrates the German designer and typographer Jan Tschichold and reminds us of his prominent position within design history. One gallery in the exhibition Jan Tschichold and the New Typography at the Bard Graduate Center shows his design work, while the rest of the space is devoted to Tschichold's collection of work by his contemporaries, now part of MoMA's collection.

Given the current attention on Tschichold, it is with some pride that we recall a little-known connection between the Type Directors Club and Tschichold. In 1959, Tschichold participated in a TDC seminar in New York City on the theme “What Is American Typography?". The essay that he delivered for the seminar, entitled "Quousque Tandem…" ("How Long...") has become the most commonly-cited text about why Tschichold turned away from his youthful, dogmatic modernism.

In the short essay, Tschichold wrote that he did not believe in a national typography, except when it is the "casual result of work." He had strong opinions about nationalism and design because of his persecution before World War II. As National Socialists gained power in the 1930s, they criticized leftist and communist (that is, Modernist) design for being un-German, and Tschichold was briefly imprisoned in Germany before he fled to Switzerland with his wife. Then, interestingly, he came to see parallels between the restrictions of Modernist typography (the exclusive use of sans-serif type in asymmetric arrangements, etc.) and the intolerance of the German fascists. After the war he became more broad-minded, and wrote, "The aim of typography must not be expression, least of all self-expression, but perfect communication achieved by skill. Taking over working principles from previous times or other typographers is not wrong but sensible."

Following here we offer here the full essay text and we also ask for your help in solving a mystery. TDC records fail to show if Tshichold delivered the essay in person in New York in 1959 or instead sent it to be read by another. The essay was not included in the TDC publication of seminar talks, and only appeared in print in Print magazine in 1964.

If you know of any proof that he came to New York or did not, please email us at director@tdc.org. Thank you!

Print magazine "Typography Today" issue, 1964. Bound copy at the New York Public Library

Quousque Tandem…

by Jan Tschichold, 1959

…In Switzerland, a few years ago, there was a rumor…about the possibilities of a “Swiss” typography. I do not believe in the value of a “national” typography. The attempt to create a “national” typography is certainly, to my mind, a fallacy. Still, even when such an approach is expressly avoided, it is in practice often the casual result of work. In general, we should consider the typography of the western world as one and the same thing. True, we can no more overlook the English approach than the American one, and probably nobody will be doubtful that there is a certain Swiss approach of today. The latter, for which I do not feel responsible, is the exemplar of a most inflexible typography which makes no distinction between the advertising of an artistic performance or of a screw catalog. Nor does this typography allow for the human desire for variety. It has an entirely militaristic attitude.

What I do today is not in the line of my often-mentioned book, “Die neue Typographie,” since I am the most severe critic of the young Tschichold of 1925–28. A Chinese proverb says, “In haste there is error.” So many things in that primer are erroneous, because my experience was too small.

In Germany in 1925 (and the present situation there is not too different from that period), far too many typefaces were used and, with a few exceptions, only bad ones. (I still remember the deep satisfaction of the moment when I saw, by chance, at the tender age of seventeen, English magazine pages set up in Caslon.)

Those German typefaces appeared in undisciplined arrangements, not at all “traditional” in the present-day meaning of this word. Those unacquainted with it can hardly imagine the mediocrity of German typography of that period. As a letterer, I felt insulted, day after day, by the ugly appearance of the newspapers, magazines, and the many sorts of advertisements. To cure these weaknesses I suggested two remedies, one for the type and one for the arrangement.

In order to reduce the number of typefaces…I thought the solution to be in a single typeface only, for all purposes, namely that which is called in German “Grotesk,” in English “Sans-serif,” and in the United States “Gothic.” For the arrangement, I suggested total asymmetry instead of centering the lines.

Now I have to reveal what I think is wrong with these juvenile ideas and with the situation of 1924. It was not the great number of typefaces in fashion then, but the poor quality of practically all these typefaces, and it was not the general unsuitability of a centered order but the lack of the compositor’s skill in such arrangements. Had I been more experienced then than could be expected at the age of 23, and had I been instructed in arranging type (of which I never heard lectures in my youth or later, because there weren’t any available), then perhaps I should have thought over my immature ideas more carefully.

So far, in this haste there was certainly error. Yet, very often, error is creative. My errors were more fertile than I ever imagined. Certainly the typography of the time shortly before 1925 was, in general, ailing, and in urgent need of a doctor. The treatment was heroic but healthy. Yet one cannot live by abstinence and pharmaceutics. The weakness of the period before 1925 was the lack of at least one good type. It would have been better to look out for a good type or, better, for a greater number of useful typefaces, than to reduce their number to a single typeface of doubtful utility. In the light of my present knowledge, it was a juvenile opinion to consider the sans-serif as the most suitable or even the most contemporary typeface. A typeface has first to be legible, nay, readable, and a sans-serif is certainly not the most legible typeface when set in quantity, let alone readable. Nor does a centered arrangement of too many different and even ugly letters prove the inappropriateness of line centering in general, but [rather is evidence of] lack of skill and artistic intelligence.

A few years after “Die neue Typographie,” Hitler came. I was accused of creating “un-German” typography and art, and so I preferred to leave Germany. Since 1933 I have lived in Basle, Switzerland. In the very first years I tried to develop what I had called “Die neue Typographie” and, in 1935, wrote another textbook, “Typographische Gestaltung,” which is much more prudent than “Die neue Typographie” and still a useful book! In time, typographical things, in my eyes, took on a very different aspect, and to my astonishment I detected most shocking parallels between the teachings of “Die neue Typographie” and National Socialism and Fascism. Obvious similarities consist in the ruthless restriction of typefaces, a parallel to Goebbels’ infamous “gleichschaltung” (political alignment), and the more or less militaristic arrangement of lines. Because I did not want to be guilty of spreading the very ideas which had compelled me to leave Germany, I thought over again what a typographer should do. Which typefaces are good and what arrangement is the most practicable? By guiding the compositors of a large Basle printing office, I learned a lot about practicability. Good typography has to be perfectly legible and, as such, the result of intelligent planning. The classical typefaces such as Garamond, Janson, Baskerville and Bell are undoubtedly the most legible. Sans-serif is good for certain cases of emphasis, but is used to the point of abuse. The occasion for using sans-serif are as rare as those for wearing obtrusive decorations.

Every asymmetrical arrangement needs its own individual design. Asymmetry is a secret known to a group of initiates and not easy for the average compositor to acquire. He learns to push a line to the left or to the right; never center it! True, a perfectly symmetrical arrangement is not easy. This in no way invalidates the principle, however, and no asymmetrist is entitled to blame it for this difficulty since his own arrangements lack even common sense; and the most slavish compositor will in time lose all pleasure in such work. A centered typography, while certainly not suitable for all purposes, is comparatively simple, and even the inexperienced compositor without intelligent guidance cannot commit grave faults there.

Unfortunately, this bad rigid typography still persists, especially in the town where I live. Is the typographer a prophet or a propagator of a new faith? Typography should be allowed individuality; this is to appear as different as the people around us, just as there are girls and men, fat and thin, wise and stupid, serious and gay, easily-pleased and fussy.

The aim of typography must not be expression, least of all self-expression, but perfect communication achieved by skill. Taking over working principles from previous times or other typographers is not wrong but sensible. Typography is a servant and nothing more. The servant typography ought to be the most perfect servant.

Our needs change, and for this reason alone the attitude of typography may also change slightly. Our eyes, however, do not change. They are still the same organ as Garamond had. As printed matter sometimes (we hope, in the most deserving cases) survives its originators and what we plan today may be read two hundred years hence, just as we can read books printed three hundred years ago, typography must not change very much. Essentially dependent on the shape of letters, it is an example of genuine tradition. Probably nowhere else is so little change noticeable and necessary as in typography.

The term used to characterize such activities as my own of today, traditionalism, deserves a short consideration. It is definitely not a natural continuation of the typography before 1925, and has, in fact, practically nothing to do with it. That tradition, if it was one, was dead. The few who work today in the same way as I do had to regain another healthy tradition by hard labor, which is neither the useless repetition nor imitation of the 16th or 18th century manner nor a blind revival of obsolete rules. It uses all the contemporary possibilities and responds to all needs. A draftsman or a compositor of the 19th century could hardly comply with modern tastes.

After having spoken most critically about my own early work…I want to use this opportunity to pay tribute to the outstanding high quality of typography in the United States. Even if you yourselves deny it, I as a historian must assert that it has a history as long and glorious as that of the States. The happy unity of language of almost a whole continent, allowing for huge printings, in combination with your unlimited technical possibilities, and last, and by no means least, the presence of so many highly-gifted individual typographers, often produce printed matter of paramount quality which I admire.

(Transcribed from Print XVIII:1, January/February 1964. Photo of Jan Tschichold, ca. 1926, by Kurt Schwitters)

The Type Directors Club May calendar is particularly full as we join forces with three special design celebrations in New York that spotlight great type and design:

Type Directors Club is hosting events throughout the city – at the club, at Parsons, the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), in letter walks in Brooklyn and Midtown, and (virtually) on YouTube. Here’s our calendar at a glance:

Members receive significant discounts to all these events, walks, and workshops, so if you are not a member, please join!

And we just had to remind you about the special type and design exhibitions on display during May in New York:

Because we have had such an incredible response to Manuel Estrada's beautiful exhibit, we have invited him to come back to New York and speak about his work. Take a look at the photo gallery here.

Painting with letters is something Manuel Estrada has always been interested in, as in writing with images. It is a way of summing up all tools to turn design into an object to examine or an image to look at. Manuel will talk about his book covers, posters, and logos that are built around the same principle — typography as the main tool of graphic design.

Manuel Estrada is the recipient of the Spanish National Design Award. His Estudio, founded in 1989, has offices in Madrid and Miami, it has a team of 17 people and is specialized in corporate identity programs. He is a strong supporter of design as a fact of business development and its direct input in the success of corporations, and has also being dedicated to teaching in many different institutions. His work has been exhibited in New York, Chicago, Helsinki, Berlin, Lisbon, and many cities throughout Spain.

Website: www.estradadesign.eu

Twitter: @Estrada_design

The Type Directors Club invites members, its honorees, and the press to the private New York opening of The World’s Best Typography: The 65th Annual Exhibition of the Type Directors Club. The exhibition features communication design and the selections from the twenty-first annual typeface design competition, which will be on display through August 9, 2019.

Announcements of the Best in Show, Best in Show Student Awards and Scholarship presentations start at 6:30 PM in the auditorium. Please join us as we also present the 32nd TDC Medal to Wim Crouwel. Over the past 52 years the TDC Medal has been awarded to individuals who excel in the field of typography and typographic design.

Drinks and hors d'ouevres in the foyer.
Exhibition viewing in the gallery.

Only winners of the TDC competitions will receive FREE tickets. Everyone is invited but must purchase tickets.

TDC65 Judges

Karin Fong, Imaginary Forces
Leo Jung, Sunday Magazine
Eddie Opara, Pentagram
Paulina Reyes, Plated New York
Ian Spalter, Instagram
Annik Troxler, Switzerland
Zipeng Zhu, Dazzle

Chair: Bobby Martin, Jr., OCD

Typeface Design Judges

Nicole Dotin, Process Type Foundry
Tobias Frere-Jones, Frere-Jones Type
Erin McLaughlin
Kristyan Sarkis, TPTQ Arabic Type Foundry

Chair: Nina Stössinger, Frere-Jones Type

Designed by Bond, London

This event is sponsored by Monotype and The Cooper Union