When designers breathe life into typography and lettering, it’s impossible not to listen to the vibrant stories those letters go on to tell. No designer is immune to typography, and those who embrace it—or master it—are the designers whose work tends to rise to the top. This year, we decided to formally celebrate such triumphs with Print’s all-new Typography & Lettering Awards . In our inaugural competition, letterer and illustrator Jessica Hische and letter designer and design historian Paul Shaw pored over entries in handlettered work, typeface design and typographic pieces. In the Spring issue of Print magazine , we featured their chosen Best in Class winners from each category.













Below, you’ll find more images of the Best in Class winners, plus the full roster of honorable mentions.

Best in Class Winners









Handlettered Work 1. YOLO—You Only Live Once (26,000 beads) Lil’Ol’Lady, Copenhagen, Denmark; www.lilollady.com : Julie Katrine Andersen (art director/designer/illustrator/photographer)

Andersen put the trendy acronym YOLO (You Only Live Once) to promotional work, using beads to craft letters made of “unhealthy things, as a way to say ‘Hey, live a little!’” she says. “It is also what I said to myself when I decided to start my own design business and quit my steady job as a design professor.”

Learn more about Julie Katrine Andersen and her thoughts on creative inspiration .





Student Handlettered Work 2. Anonymous Chalkboard Graffiti Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH; www.ccad.edu : Dangerdust (art directors/designers/illustrators/photographers), Matthew Mohr (advising instructor)

The anonymous duo behind these designs is well known for sneaking into vacant classrooms at Columbus College of Art and Design and turning chalkboards into handlettered works of art that inspire not only peers, but admirers the world over.

Learn more about Dangerdust’s creative design .





Typographic Design 3. Mikkeli’s 10th Illustration Triennial Prakt Design Agency, Helsinki; www.prakt.fi : Matti Tuominen (art director/designer), Erweko Oy, Mainospuu Oy (printers); Mikkeli Art Museum, Grafia—Association of Visual Communication Designers in Finland (client)

Using two typefaces (Maax by Damien Gautier and Quentin Margat, and Premiéra by Thomas Gabriel/Typejockeys), Prakt designed the visual identity for the 10th Mikkeli Illustration Triennial. “We didn’t want to create more illustrations for the exhibition already showcasing the best Finnish illustrations,” Tuominen says. “The solution was based on custom lettering formed with different picture-making tools and materials. With this typographic approach we created hybrids of pictures and letters to carry the identity inside the text written with the ‘tools.’”









Student Typographic Design 4. Sorts (see the full animation at www.vimeo.com/92281452 ) Mica, Baltimore; www.mica.edu : Kirby Matherne (designer), Ellen Lupton, Abbott Miller, Jennifer Cole Phillips, Tal Leming, Glen Cummings (advising instructors)

“Sorts is a typeface based upon the typographic experimentation that letterpress printers utilize in the method of letterpress poster printing,” Matherne says, adding that designers would often run out of letters needed to spell words when typesetting posters. “To solve this problem, they would get creative and would make the desired letter by rotating or combining other letters. Each letter in the typeface utilizes four versions of these kinds of solutions.”





Typeface Design 5. Initials Casa Rex, São Paulo; www.casarex.com : Gustavo Piqueira (art director/designer), Samia Jacintho, Deiverson Ribeiro (designers)

This modular font, comprised of three sets of the standard Western alphabet of 26 letters, “presents a contemporary take on illuminated historiated initials, which brings them into the 21st century,” Piqueira says. “Each letter, as in its medieval predecessors, presents a visual narrative but, instead of biblical scenes, it depicts pictures of traffic jams, fast food, weapons and cell phones—an ironic portrait of our era.”





Student Typeface Design 6. Conglomerate Type@Cooper (the cooper union), New York City; www.coopertype.org : Greg Shutters (designer), Jesse Ragan, Cara Di Edwardo, Sasha Tochilovsky, Andy Clymer (advising instructors)

“Conglomerate is an unlikely hybrid of a rational superelliptical sans and harshly stressed, broad nib calligraphy,” Shutters says, noting that although the typeface is inspired by these and other sources, it does not fit neatly into any particular category. “Despite its far-flung roots, Conglomerate sparkles in medium-sized display use, particularly in packaging, advertising and magazine design.”

Honorable Mentions

Handlettered Work

Student Handlettered Work

Practice Your Craft Pensacola Christian College , Pensacola, FL: Katie Barich (designer), Andy Gwynn (photographer), Joseph Digangi (advising instructor) Texas Junk Fest Texas State University , San Marcos: Stevie Johnston (art director/illustrator), Justin Hernandez, Raven Sanders (art directors), Zoha Shafiq (art director/photographer), Texas Junk Fest (client), Holly Sterling (advising instructor) The Woman’s Poetry Ewha Womans University , Seoul, Korea: shin woo park (designer), su jin park (advising instructor) Zydeco BBQ Sauce Labels Nicholls State University , Thibodaux, LA: Amber LeBlanc (designer), Trisha Rabalais (advising instructor)

Typographic Design

Student Typographic Design

Typeface Design

Alverata PE TypeTogether, Praha, Czech Republic: Gerard Unger (art director), Gerry Leonidas, Irene Vlachou, Tom Grace (designers) Arbordale Aerotype , Asheville, NC: Stephen Miggas (designer) Blesk Samarskaya & Partners , Brooklyn, NY: Ksenya Samarskaya (art director/designer), James Todd, Jonathan Yamakami (designers), Robert Fahs III (copywriter) Intel Clear Red Peak Group , New York City: Red Peak (designer), Dalton Maag (design/type) P22 Marcel Script Pro Porterfolio, Inc. , White Bear Lake, MN: Carolyn Porter (designer), P22 (type foundry) Ridewell Typeface Kostas Bartsokas , Leeds, UK

Student Typeface Design

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