TDC2 2009 results

Feb 20 2009

And the Winners Are

It’s that time of year again. The Type Directors club (TDC) has just announced its 2009 typeface awards, with the winners being awarded the Certificate of Typographic Excellence in Type Design. Here are a several of my favourites:

Cassius from Mathieu Réguer:

[twitter]

Malabar from Dan Reynolds:

The Malabar family will be available for purchase pretty soon. Initially available in Regular, Bold, and Heavy; each with their respective Italics. Devanagari support to come later. Dan is also the author of the type blog typeoff. And this article’s masthead is set in Malabar Heavy Italic. [twitter]

Orbe by Rui abreu:

Following up on National’s success last year, Kris Sowersby collects another two statues for two custom typefaces, Hardys & Serrano.

All winning entries will be published in Typography 30. If you don’t have your copy of Typography 29 (with last year’s winners, and lots, lots more), then I recommend it.

Congratulations to all the winners. However, I am surprised by the omission of Skolar. I think (if it was entered) it would have come away with an award. Perhaps next year?

Which are your favourites?

Coming up …

A larger than life the week in type.

Philipp

Cassius looks very nice.

Feb 20, 2009
Alec

Hardys is beautiful. Montague Script is fine as well.

Feb 20, 2009
Zélia

Malabar is just beautiful. Can’t wait to see it closer.

Feb 20, 2009
Elí

My favourites are
Display Optica
Script Adios
Text Ginkgo
Text system Of course Cassius is amazing
Congratulations winners!

Feb 20, 2009
Fernanda Gomez

Lovely fonts, may you suggest one for my site, which are all related to papers?

http://www.papercraftscentral.net

Thank you

Feb 20, 2009
Alex Charchar

I love the serifs on Malabar heavy.. and the high x-height makes the italic lower-case h (in your example) gorgeous.. the crazy contrast is also interesting, best seen in the lowercase a in the heavy (or bold?) italic..

Feb 20, 2009
Stephen Coles

Obviously, I’m biased, but I was disappointed not to see a single FontFont make the cut (FF Chambers? FF Netto? FF Pitu? FF Mister K? FF Utility?).

That said, there is some excellent work among the winners. Congrats to all.

Feb 20, 2009
Pedro Leal

I think Orbe by Rui Abreu is amazingly well drawn. My favorite no doubt. Klimax also looks great.

Feb 21, 2009
John Hudson

A fine selection: these three are among my favourites too. But my absolute favourite from this year’s winners is the Copte Scripte font from Laurent Bourcellier & Jonathan Perez.

Feb 21, 2009
Josef

@Stephen, I share your sentiments, especially on Chambers, Netto, and Mister K.

Nonetheless, I think Malabar and Klimax are excellent.

Feb 21, 2009
mic

love cassius… can’t wait to see this get released :)
Great blog btw, I vouch to never remove it from my netvibes feed page!

Feb 21, 2009
Klaas Wijnne

I thought that Geneo looked very nice and seems like it’s going to have everything from extra light to black.

Feb 21, 2009
Dan Reynolds

@Zélia
If you can’t wait to see Malabar up close, go to typefacedesign.org and downnload the PDF specimen of Martel. Martel was Malabar’s working title while I was designing it at the University of Reading. The Martel specimen will show you what went on to become Malabar Regular, Malabar Italic, Mabalabr Bold, and Malabar Heavy. I hadn’t drawn the Bold Italic or the Heavy Italic yet… those came later! Of course, there is quite a lot of Devanagari to see in that PDF specimen, too. That specimen is the only place you’ll be able to see my Devanagari character set, at least for the time being!

@Alex Charchar
Both of the Malabar samples on this page that feature a heavy italic a are from the Heavy Italic font. There isn’t any of the Bold Italic to see on this page. But don’t worry :-)

Feb 21, 2009
ERE

i think that “optica normal” is a great work, and excellent initiative.
“Bravo México”, we did it again.

Congratulations Manolo.

Feb 21, 2009
Peter H

Nice fonts!

I have a question, I don’t now if it’s appropriate here…… I own a small research company (economic research). We make reports. I’m looking for a new font, it should be readable, modern but also reliable, so not ‘over the top’. I’d prefer to have lowercase figures as well.

One of the candidates is the FF Meta serif and sans serif set. What suggestions would you have? Of course I’m also open to free fonts! But I am willing to pay for a good font as well. My idea is to have a modern serif font for the body text, and sans serif for the illustrations, tables, footnotes etc.

Thanks in advance

Feb 21, 2009
johno

Peter
That’s a big question, but if you’re already looking at FF Meta & FF Meta Serif, then you can’t go far wrong. Would be money well invested. Of course, there are myriad others to choose from, but without seeing what you’re working on, it’s impossible to be more precise.

Feb 21, 2009
Alex Charchar

Ah cool, thought so, thanks ;)

Feb 21, 2009
Miguel Lozano

Nice. I love the idea of people still designing classic fonts. I been wanting to do so my self but always have an excuse to avoid starting to draw… Congrats to the winners!

Feb 23, 2009
kate

I really like the Malabar font. I like that it is a relatively rounded font, while at the same time it is straight and classy. I think it gives the impression of being a modern twist on a classic font because of the juxtaposition within itself of curved and straight and also the mixture of thin and thickness. This font also gives the option of regular, bold, and heavy, with the italic version of all of these. I never really understood the difference between bold and heavy, but having more options is generally a positive addition. I would like to see the font in its bold italic phase and heavy italic phases because a lot of times, I think that fonts lose their integrity when they are adjusted. Overall I like it!

Feb 24, 2009
Jonathan Hoefler

It was a great collection this year, and truly a pleasure to be among the judges. I’d also like to thank our contributing experts in absentia, whose comments helped us make sense of some of the year’s more esoteric entries — John Hudson especially shed some very useful illumination on the Coptic “Copte Scripte” that he mentioned above. I’d be delighted to see an image posted here.

Congratulations especially to all the students from Reading and KABK who contributed such fine work to the TDC. You are colleagues who make the entire profession very proud!

Feb 24, 2009
Jean F Porchez

Bravo!

More images about the french winners:
http://www.typographe.com/article/953/tdc-2009-copte-scripte
http://www.typographe.com/article/952/tdc-2009-geneo
http://www.typographe.com/article/951/tdc-2009-cassius

+
http://www.typographe.com/article/949/tdc-2009-lannee-francaise

Feb 24, 2009
Amelia Vargo

I just love Malabar. There is something reassuringly heavy about it, but it is still so readable. No wonder it is one of your favourites.

Feb 24, 2009
Aliea

Oh my gosh I am in love with Cassius! I cant wait for its release! Please let us know when it is!

Feb 25, 2009
Juan Pablo Meza Recabarren

Felicitaciones a Ale Paul por su Adios very nice; excelentes tipografías
saludos

Feb 26, 2009
Erkan

Nice. I love the idea of people still designing classic fonts. I been wanting to do so my self but always have an excuse to avoid starting to draw… Congrats to the winners!

Mar 2, 2009
Mahmut

Thank :);)

Mar 2, 2009
Ale Paul

Thanks!

Mar 3, 2009
Amy

Cassius is gorgeous. Those Ks! Delicious.

Mar 5, 2009
Suzanne

Cassius is brilliant, might just have to get myself a copy…

Mar 6, 2009
Octoploid

Malabar looks like a polished version of (TEFF) Lexicon.
I like it.

Mar 9, 2009
Frank, logo designer

Thanks for the link to the ‘Martel’ pdf Dan. I absolutely love the Malabar font.

Mar 13, 2009
Dan Reynolds

Thanks for all the kind words about Malabar, everyone! For all Martel & Malabar fans, Malabar has finally been released, and you can get it over here.

Mar 13, 2009