Eligibility & Rules

TDC71, the Type Directors Club 71st annual global competition, recognizes typographic excellence and innovation, while maintaining its ongoing commitment to the art and craft of typography and design.

Judging Process

• The jury is selected and composed of the top typographers and type designers from across the world to judge all submitted entries.
• During the judging process, the jury will base their decision on three criteria, reviewing if the entry is:
  
  1. An original and inspiring idea
  2. Well-executed
  3. Relevant to its context

Type Design Submissions

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.

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.

All Submissions

• Entries must have been produced or published during 2024. Designs published before January 1, 2024 are not eligible.
• Submissions can be from anyone associated with the entry.
• Due to U.S. Government Regulations & Restrictions, we are unable to accept entries from Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria.

Please Note: All entries must be submitted via the online platform. We will ONLY be accepting physical entries for selected categories in the Communication Design discipline.

All entries are required to submit Judging Media and Promotional Images:

• JUDGING MEDIA: The primary material and content that the jury will review and score.
• PROMOTIONAL IMAGES: These images will be used for reference only and will not be judged.

Entry Formats
Entries are to be submitted as images, videos, and/or pdfs. Please ensure high enough resolution to judge your work appropriately.

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 submission media files.

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.

Terms & Conditions
By submitting work into the competition, all entrants agree to the following:

• 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, the entrant, hereby grant the TDC permission to show the work(s) in exhibitions, on the TDC and One Club website archives, and to publish it/them in any other publications the TDC deems appropriate.
• I, the entrant, also allow the TDC to use images of work(s) in all forms of publicity for the competition and exhibitions.
• I, the entrant, hereby affirm that the materials I, the entrant, 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, the entrant, 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.