The Type Directors Club is the leading international organization supporting excellence in typography, both in print and on screen. Since 1946, the Type Directors Club has promoted excellence in the fields of typography and type design. The organization was initially formed in 1943 by a group of type specifiers from New York advertising agencies who met to discuss their work over lunch. Pete Tolles from J.Walter Thompson led the group. Six months later, Mr.Tolles passed away; his colleague Frank Powers took his place and continued the regular lunch meetings. In October 1946, the informal group “Type Directors Club” was formed, with Frank Powers as its first president. Since then, the organization’s mission has been education. In 1955 TDC member Edward Gottschall suggested a TDC competition to recognize outstanding work in the profession. Ever since, the TDC has held two yearly competitions: one for the use of type and letterforms in design, and the other for typeface design. The selected works are reproduced in the TDC’s Typography annual which is published by Verlag Herman Schmidt and serves as a historical documentation of typographic trends for designers, educators, and students. Winning works are also included in exhibitions that travel to many countries across the globe.
Carol Wahler—the executive director of TDC—has been involved with the organization since 1983 when the TDC had its 29th annual international competition. Carol grew up in a family that owned a type business. Carol’s family—two older brothers and her parents—set type on Ludlow beginning in 1952 in New York City. She began working in her family’s business at the age of eleven, when she learned the process of setting slugs of type from watching her brothers at work. “My mother taught me bookkeeping; how to answer the phone; how to take copy and corrections, and how to speak to customers.” Carol continues, “I never realized that I would take all those experiences and use them in my current position and that I would grow to love the letterform. I fell in love with scripts first, the Spencerian Script used for invitations.”
Carol became involved with the TDC through the family business. “My husband Allan worked in our company, Cardinal Type Service. His client Jack Odette (Vice President and Director of Communication Design at Citibank), was the TDC29 chairman, and Mr. Odette asked if Cardinal could be the receiving facility for entries.” Cardinal agreed to accommodate the storage for the entry packages that were shipped to the TDC office. Carol adds, “Allan had asked me if I would act as a facilitator and ensure that things were handled in an orderly fashion and if the competition volunteers needed anything. Upon seeing all the packages piled up in his office, I brought them into the room that would be used, and organized them alphabetically, not knowing how they should be organized. Jack was very impressed, and asked if I would like to work part-time opening and cataloging the entries. I said yes.” After forty-four years, Cardinal Type Service closed in the mid-1990s, as did most type shops.
In 1983, at the TDC board’s decision Carol was hired for her qualifications and thorough knowledge of the organization. She replaced Bud Ellis, the former Executive Secretary, who retired in the same year after serving the organization for a year in that role. Prior to him, Jerry Singleton held the position for twenty years. Several years later, Carol’s title was changed to Executive Director. “The responsibilities of the TDC Executive Director are many. TDC has no other full time paid employees, and its board of directors is an elected-volunteer working board. All of TDC’s board members and officers work very closely with its Executive Director to make things happen.” Carol adds “I am responsible for the day-to-day functioning of the TDC office, working with all the committee chairs on financial and membership management; media and supplier contacts; competitions; exhibitions, and program coordination. The challenges to TDC are to increase its membership domestically and internationally (currently we have members in 40 countries); and to create a wide-spectrum of weekly programs with the goals of educating, motivating and stimulating the attendees about the use of the letterforms. The TDC one- or two-day classes and workshops connect participants with instructors from around the world. The TDC Communication Design and Typeface Design competitions are rigorous and respected. When I started at the TDC, I worked on the competition annual, Typography 4; now Typography 37 will be available in December 2016. This past year, the traveling exhibitions were shown in 42 cities and in 17 countries, including Seoul; Bangkok; Brussels; Jerusalem; Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City; Beijing; Taipei; and cities in Canada, England, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, South America, Spain, Russia, and the U.S.”
Education has always been an important part of the club’s mission. Since January 1947, the TDC has been offering lectures under the title Ten Talks on Type. These lectures have been given by James Secrest, Arnold Bank, Gene Ettenberg, Charles Felton, Milton Zudeck, and many more. The series’ success eventually led to international events. The TDC also allocates seven scholarships annually to The Cooper Union, Fashion Institute of Technology, Parsons The New School for Design, Pratt Institute, School of Visual Arts, and one national and one international school. These scholarships are $1,000 each and are awarded to a junior going into his/her senior year. “Classes from around the world visit the TDC. I introduce the students to the TDC, with a presentation about its history and show them what hot metal type was, and bring them into the digital world. Once, a board member brought his class and when I was finished asked me who the first woman member was. I did not know. The very next day, another board member brought her class, and she asked the same question. Well, now I had to find out!” Carol continues, “I reviewed the TDC minutes from the 1950s and 1960s and discovered that Beatrice Warde was the first female TDC member. Beatrice Warde began working for Monotype beginning in 1927 and wrote under the pseudonym, Paul Beaujean. She became a very highly respected writer and researcher in type history. What a fantastic role model for young women entering the design industry!” In 2015, the TDC initiated the TDC Beatrice Warde Scholarship, sponsored by Monotype. The award ($5,000) is given to a woman who is in her third year of studies and entering into her fourth. Applicants’ portfolios are reviewed by a committee of judges including Gail Anderson (Anderson Newton Design), Nadine Chahine (Monotype), Shelley Gruendler (TypeCamp), and Fiona Ross (University of Reading).
In its seventy-year long history, the TDC has had two female presidents: Bonnie Hazelton, type director at McCann Erickson (1980 and 1981), and Mara Kurtz, graphic designer and educator (1996 and 1997). In the late 1970s the TDC membership began to include women. Carol mentions: “There was no discrimination before then; women simply had to apply to join, just like anyone else.” The TDC also gives a special award, the TDC Medal, to those who excel in typographic design or type use. The first recipient of this prestigious award was Hermann Zapf in 1967. Only 30 designers have received this honor, including three women: Paula Scher of Pentagram; Louise Fili; and Zuzana Licko of Emigre. “Today many of the TDC events including the TDC competitions, Type Salons, classes, and workshops are led by women. The TDC has always been open those who love the letterform.” Carol adds, “Type is truly an exciting and wonderful industry. Today, of course, it is open to anyone—whether they work with a computer or pencil—who loves letterforms.”
www.tdc.org