If You can Make it Here…Then why make it anywhere else?
A new design annual portrays local prejudices at work.

They say that in New York, the world is at your fingertips. Drink your morning coffee from a Greek paper cup, buy dazzling chinoiserie and knock-offs in Chinatown, and eat an unforgettable meal at one of Second Avenue’s indistinguishable Indian restaurants: Walking through this city, I see a miniature version of the entire planet, a planet situated at the center of the universe.

Approximating my everyday experience is Typography 26, The 26th Annual of the Type Directors Club, released this month. The publication’s design is a tour of New York’s tribal artifacts: The cover features a posterized silk-screened image of a daily Chinese calendar, with pages torn off to reveal the 26th of the month. Endsheets include tightly cropped scans of ornate Indian and Chinese food packaging. Section dividers are close-ups of printed ephemera and food packaging in Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Ethiopic, Greek, and Laotian, picked up from convenience stores and specialty shops. The exotic characters and dazzling printing remind me how fortunate I am to be living in such an international city, looking at a book with such an international view of typography, from such an internationally minded organization.

But the design also reveals something about the jury selections: A smorgasbord of New York ethnicities does not a worldwide cross-section of typography make. Indeed, the majority of the book’s entries come from New York—nearly double Germany’s 30-odd entries; German typographers double the wins from the United Kingdom and Japan. The remainder of Europe (sans Germany) and Asia tally 16 entries each. Australia and New Zealand garner three entries each. Africa has one, and both of South America’s come from Sao Paulo.

Could it just be that New York City is the center of the typographic universe, too? The overly tidy numbers suggest otherwise. Typography 26 was an exercise in filling quotas.

As much as annual competitions encourage achievement within the discipline, their sponsoring organizations depend on them for income. Submissions cost about $40 per entry; winners pay another $40 or so to appear in the book, and then that sum once more to have work hung in the accompanying exhibition. In addition, each entry form usually includes an area to join or renew yearly membership: $100, give or take.

Every organization has a budget goal in mind, and with it, a minimum number of winners its competition must name. Judges fill their quota of winners (hopefully with a meritocracy in mind). The chosen entries must maintain core membership while simultaneously encouraging entries from non-members. Striking this balance is of the highest importance. If the existing membership base feels marginalized, there will be fewer membership renewals and fewer entries next year, jeopardizing the future of the organization. Acknowledging international entrants is an easy way for an organization to expand its earning potential without alienating existing members.

As an aside, here’s how not to grow revenue: I remember one competition where, assisting in tallying scores, I was instructed to round up marks to hit target dollars. (The judges thought it unscrupulous. Perhaps not coincidently, the organization’s Executive Director has since been charged with grand larceny, to the tune of $150,000.)

The Type Directors Club does not suffer from a tarnished reputation. In fact, even though their number of winners increases annually, they receive complaints that their judges are too selective; unlike other competitions, judges are not allowed to enter work; and Carol Wahler, Executive Director of the TDC, informed me that more than half of next year’s Typography 27 winners are from outside the U.S., and that “there aren’t that many winners from New York.” While this is seemingly a step towards internationalism, I am more skeptical. The numbers tell a different story depending on point of view: Looking outward, this year’s winners were evenly split between the United States and abroad. Looking inward, they mostly came from New York.

Typography 26, is particularly unique, because it also reprints the first Type Directors Club catalog. In a time before annual budgets clouded judgment, it was okay for New Yorkers to claim all the winning entries. The contest pushed forward the discipline, and geographic identity just happened to be a telling coincidence.

As a designer living in New York, it’s easy to confuse diversity and internationalism. But Chinatown is not China: New York could not be what it is without the rest of the world. To celebrate the finest typography, the TDC’s jurors should have been instructed to possess a truly global vision—or better yet, a blind eye. In Typography 26, their suspiciously methodical attempt to de-emphasize local talent accomplished just the opposite.