TDC2 2008 Winning Entries For Free Fonts

Award season continues on Unzipped – albeit somewhat delayed. February traditionally is Oscar’s month, and in the type world it is the time of year the TDC2 winners are announced. TDC2 is the annual type Design Training contest organized by the Type Directors Club. I was hoping to receive some images of the judges at work but unfortunately that never materialized, and I’m still missing descriptions of some typefaces.

Just like the Oscars release their list of nominees, TDC published the Preliminary Results a couple of weeks before the actual announcement of the winners (the final results are only made available after the winners have been notified by physical mail). This list taught us that of the 166 Free Fonts entered from 28 countries, 21 were selected. The winning typefaces came from 13 countries; 76% was outside the U.S. Top country after the U.S. (56 entries, five winners) this year was Germany with 27 entries, of which two won, and The Netherlands with 11 entries and again two winners.

Unlike some other (type) design competitions, no rankings are assigned other than Judges’ Choices. The winning entries are listed in four categories: Text/Type Family (seven families), Display (nine typefaces), Type System (four type systems) and Pi and Ornament (one font). Within those categories the winners are in alphabetical order.