The winners of the 2006 Type Directors Club typography competition illustrate this blend of craftsmanship, beauty and usefulness. And Phinney has his picks for the best of the bunch.

ADOBE ARABIC
“Tim Holloway’s design brief from Adobe was to do an Arabic design with two weights, one that would work well for general business usage, including forms and memos, and another that would work well both in print and on screen in PDF. He’s succeeded remarkably well, making an Arabic typeface that seems to me to be both traditional and modern.”

GARAMOND PREMIER PRO
Robert Slimbach’s Garamond Premier Pro reflects more than a decade of work and refinement by one of the world’s most gifted type designers. Essentially, Garamond Premier Pro is a completely fresh take on the same general theme as Adobe Garamond (created in 1989). It’s a revival much closer to Claude Garamond’s original designs from the 1540s. Robert also added extensive multi-lingual support, with extended Latin, Greek and Cyrillic coverage. He’s achieved a real masterwork, which is functional and classic at text sizes, and beautiful and elegant at display sizes.”

BY HAVALAH GHOLDSTON
“Typefaces are like furniture,” says Thomas Phinney, product manager, Fonts & Global Typography at Adobe. “Making either is a craft, combining elements of both art and science. Each has both a critical functional component as well as an aesthetic one.”

DARKA
“Gabriel Martinez Meave’s newest type design, Darka, is a blackletter display typeface. I see this as a blackletter take on the same Victorian gothic aesthetic we saw in Meave’s script face Arcana (another personal favourite). ... Despite my passion for classic text faces, I also have a weakness for well-conceived, unusual display faces such as Darka. Like a German Black Forest Gateau, Darka is probably best enjoyed in moderation, but it is certainly tasty!”

CALOUSTE
“For people who aren’t into type, text typefaces such as Miguel Sousa’s Calouste may seem less exciting than some of the other TDC winners. But to most typographers, a well-crafted text typeface is the most difficult pinnacle of type design. “I see in Calouste a remarkable level of craftsmanship and subtlety for a designer’s first typeface ... All of which is part of why Adobe hired Miguel this spring — our first new hire in this area in almost 10 years.”

Resources
Thomas Phinney’s Type Blog
The world of type according to Thomas.

Adobe Type Showroom
More than 2,200 typefaces to browse.

Type Directors Club
Offering broad typography education and worldwide type competitions.

ATypI
Worldwide organisation dedicated to type and typography.

Havalah Gholdston has written for daily newspapers, magazines,
websites and blogs.