Honoring Mike

The Type Directors Club is the leading international organization whose purpose is to support excellence in typography, both in print and on screen. Founded in 1946 by some of the industry’s leading practitioners, the TDC’s earliest membership included Aaron Burns, Will Burtin, Freeman Craw, Louis Dorfsman, Gene Federico, Edward M. Gottschall, Herb Lubalin, Edward Rondthaler, Bradbury Thompson, and Hermann Zapf. With this solid historical background, the TDC today represents the best of today’s type design and type use.

The TDC holds two yearly type competitions: one for the use of type and the letterform in design and the other, typeface design. The winners are reproduced in our Typography Annual, published by HarperCollins Publishers, as well as displayed in seven exhibits that travel worldwide. In addition to celebrating outstanding achievements, the typography competitions and resulting annuals serve as important historical records of typographic trends, and are an invaluable resource for both designers and scholars.

Education has always been an important part of the Type Directors Club’s mission. The TDC began offering lectures in 1947, the second year of the Club’s existence. Called Ten Talks on Type, the lectures were given by James Secrest, Arnold Bank, Gene Ettenberg, Charles Felton, Milton Zudeck, O. Alfred Dickman, Joseph Weiler, Frank Powers, and Hal Zamboni. The series’ success led to it becoming an annual event. In 1958, the Club extended its reach to an international day-long seminar at the Silvermine Artists Guild in New Canaan, Connecticut, which drew 500 attendees.