Type Directors Club opens call for entries for global TDC70 competition – deadline December 8

The Type Directors Club, the world’s leading typography organization, has opened the call for entries for its prestigious TDC70 competition.

As changed last year, the program is a single competition under the TDC70 umbrella consisting of three disciplines: Communication Design, Lettering, and Type Design.

The Communication Design discipline 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.

The 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, now in its second year, has its own dedicated jury, made up of some of the world’s leading lettering practitioners and experts.

Type Design is for entries showcasing the design of typefaces.  It also allows for entries of any thematically applicable code or software, such as software for creating or generating type.

To be eligible, work must have been produced or published in the 2023 calendar year.  Early bird deadline for entry is October 27, 2023, with entry fees increasing for the regular deadline of December 8, 2024, and final deadline on January 26, 2024.  

Juries will be announced shortly.  Across the three juries, TDC70 will have native experts for writing systems spanning Arabic, Cyrillic, Indic, CJK, Thai, and select African scripts. While the competition always accepted international and multilingual entries, the addition of more judges in recent years was a reflection of TDC’s commitment to have a greater number of the most appropriate experts judging designs for which they have a deep knowledge.

The TDC competition regularly receives entries from more than 60 countries.  To make TDC70 as accessible as possible on a global level, the organization is offering significant regional discounts on entry fees.  

Approximately half of the world’s countries qualify for a 60% discount, and another quarter of them receive a 20% discount, with only the most economically prosperous countries and regions paying the full entry fee.  Additional discounts are also available to TDC members and students.

Winners of TDC70 receive a Certificate of Typographic Excellence and digital seal certifying their work is among the world’s best of the year.  Winning work will also be featured in the highly respected TDC Annual, The World’s Best Typography®, and showcased in eight exhibitions that travel to museums, schools and design organizations around the world. 

TDC70 winners are also part of The One Club’s prestigious Global Creative Rankings, earning points alongside winners in The One Show and ADC Annual Awards to chart the world’s leading independent creatives, ad agencies, production companies, and brands.

This year’s TDC70 competition committee is chaired by Eric Q. Liu, typographer, editor, podcaster and writer with The Type in Tokyo, with support from TDC Advisory Board members John Kudos, managing partner, KUDOS Design Collaboratory and KASA Collective, New York, and Trisha Tan, design director, Brooklyn, NY. 

Branding for this year’s competition was created by Wolff Olins, with fonts generously donated by Neubau, based in Berlin.

Says Thomas Wilder, global principal, Wolff Olins: “Each year, the TDC has epitomized the essence of the current era. This year, we wanted to challenge the all-too-common approach of looking to the future or to the past, and instead bring urgency and importance to the present moment.  We set out with the idea ‘Made For Now’ to design with the power of ephemerality in an ever-changing world.”

Says Carol Wahler, executive director, Type Directors Club: “TDC’s annual competition strives to always remain relevant to the greater typographic community in all regions and cultures, and we’re excited to accept and celebrate entries in more disciplines and styles than ever before.”

Please visit the TDC70 entry site for more information and to enter this year’s competition.

Agency: Wolff Olins
Global Principal: Thomas Wilder
Associate Creative Directors: Lau Huaranga, Scott Cress
Client Engagement Directors: Jonathan Millar, Ian Carroll
Senior Designers: David Knowles, Nicolò Bernardi
Designers: Catreen Yoon, Eddy Lee
Creative Director: Jess Yan
Design Intern: Huiyu Yang
Motion Designer: Jason Chen
Junior Motion Designer: Yiting Nan
Fonts: Neubau Berlin