Eligibility & Rules
TDC71, the Type Directors Club 71st annual international competition, recognizes typographic excellence and innovation, while maintaining its ongoing commitment to the art and craft of typography and design.
Submissions
- Entries must have been produced or published during 2024.
- Submissions can be from anyone associated with the entry.
Please Note: All entries must be submitted digitally. We will ONLY be accepting physical entries for selected categories in the Communication Design discipline.
All entries are required to submit Judging Media and Reference Images:
- JUDGING MEDIA: The primary material and content that the jury will review and score.
- REFERENCE IMAGES: These images will be used for reference only and will not be judged.
Type Design Discipline
Eligible Entries
Any new typeface designs produced or published between January 1 and December 31, 2024 are eligible. Typeface designs may be submitted by anyone involved in their design, production, or marketing.
THE NAME OF THE DESIGNER AND TYPEFACE MUST NOT APPEAR IN THE SUBMISSION IMAGES/PDF.
Ineligible Entries
Extended or revised versions of older, previously published type designs are not eligible. This includes upgraded typefaces with newly expanded glyph sets in the original script (e.g., with added Latin glyph subsets, design variants, small capitals, ligatures, swashes, alternates, numerical styles, expert, localized and historical forms, stylistic sets, ornaments). However, designs that have authorized additions of scripts other than the original (e.g., from Latin to Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, Armenian, Thai, Han/Kanji, etc.) are eligible.
Designs published before January 1, 2024 are not eligible.
Due to due to U.S Government Regulations & Restrictions, we are unable to accept entries from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Russia.
Entry Formats
Entries are to be submitted as images, videos, and/or pdfs. Please ensure high enough resolution to judge your work appropriately. Each entry may include up to a maximum of 10 proof pages. The requirements for proofs are:
Non-identification
To ensure anonymous and fair judgement of entries, the names of the typeface, designer, client, manufacturer or distributor must not appear anywhere on the front or on the back of the proof.
Character Showings
Proofs should show as complete a character set as possible given the size of the design's glyph complement and the number of styles in the submission. In the case of complex extended multi-script character sets, ensure that the showing is comprehensive enough to allow the jury to judge the design appropriately.
Complex System Showings
Submissions of text and display systems or families should follow the above guidelines, but may feature more than one font or style in each showing.
Awards
Only winners will be notified in April 2025 by email.
Certificates
Entries selected by the jury will receive Certificates of Typographic Excellence. They will be exhibited in the 71st TDC Exhibition and appear in The World’s Best Typography®, Typography. Winners will be asked to supply digital files of the winning entries for use in The World’s Best Typography®.
Travel Exhibition Material
Winners will also be asked to supply eight (8) additional copies of winning entries for use in exhibitions outside New York. These shows travel throughout North America, South America, Europe and Asian countries. Credits of individuals and firms that have contributed to each entry will be included in the exhibitions and in The World’s Best Typography®.
Credits will be requested for selected pieces.
IN THE EVENT OF ANY DISPUTE REGARDING THE ELIGIBILITY OF THE ENTRY’S QUALIFICATIONS, THE CHAIRPERSON’S DECISION IS FINAL.
Entry is declared to be a 2024 production.
I hereby grant the TDC permission to show the work(s) in exhibitions, on the TDC website, and to publish it/them in the TDC annual and other publications. I also allow the TDC to use images of work(s) in all forms of publicity for the competition and exhibitions.
I hereby affirm that the materials I submit to the competition(s) and their publications will not infringe upon any personal, property or intellectual rights (i.e., copyright, trademark, and patent) of others and that I have full power to enter into this agreement and that all information is accurate and hold the TDC harmless from any action resulting from this entry material and information.
