We were once told: “Out of thousands of typefaces, all we need are a few basic ones, and trash the rest.” That was Massimo Vignelli in 1991. Thousands are now millions and the quality has markedly improved. Picking just five is impossible. Every designer has their own arcane process for selecting a font. Reliable typographers. Preferred foundries. Old reference books. New “best of” lists. Competition winners. 

For us, the Type Directors Club is the arbiter of great type and typography. As a competition, it’s the Super Bowl of Typographic Design, the World Championship of Lettering, so that’s how we designed it.