The Society of Typographic Aficionados (SOTA) has announced that Erin McLaughlin of New York will be the recipient of the 2011 SOTA Catalyst Award. The award was created by SOTA in 2010 to recognize a person thirty years of age or younger who demonstrates significant achievement and future promise in the field of typography. Erin will present her work and receive the award at TypeCon2011: Surge, taking place in New Orleans, July 5th–10th.
Winner
Erin McLaughlin, 26
New York, New York
The judges were unanimous in recognising the qualities of her Katari typeface design:
“This style of type requires great care to maintain recognisable letter structures within the apparently informal, roughly faceted outlines, and to affect the correct balance of weight and harmony between letterforms and across the various weights and style members of the font family. This has been accomplished very well, not only in the various weights of the Latin type but also in the Devanagari script companion.”
“The project is well presented, in a visually exciting specimen that mirrors the characteristics of the type design at the page level. The designer’s research into Indian writing systems and the historical development of their typography is demonstrated, but has not constrained her to follow safe, well-trod paths. In conclusion, Katari is a fine achievement, and especially remarkable for having been a student project. Erin McLaughlin is a young designer who fully deserves the encouragement of the SOTA Catalyst Award.”
This year SOTA is also extending honorable mention status to three individuals whom the judges wanted to acknowledge:
Honorable Mention
Ian Katz, 29
Dover, New Hampshire
The judges were impressed by the approach taken by this self-confessed non-typographer to a practical problem: how to automate grouping of different typefaces based on design similarity, so that users can see them ‘in the context of the visual landscape they collectively form’. Ian Katz’s day job is creating software for underwater robots, and his FontClustr tool is an admirable example of an outsider’s analytical approach to the problem of typeface categorisation or grouping.
Honorable Mention
Kriti Monga, 30
New Delhi, India
If the SOTA Catalyst Award were presented solely on the grounds of passion and enthusiasm evident in the submission, Kriti Monga would have easily won. The judges were delighted by the examples of hand lettering, sketches and tattoos in this submission, as well as by the overall quality of the presentation and evident enthusiasm. Her work is consistently playful but never becomes sloppy, and even her most informal letters are carefully balanced to create a pleasing composition.
Honorable Mention
Maximiliano Sproviero, 23
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Maximiliano Sproviero submitted the second most accomplished individual typeface design, Reina Pro. This is a complex display typeface incorporating both inline variants and hairline flourishes to a nicely heavy romantic letterform. Great skill is shown in the detailing, and an excellent feel for the correct flow of curves and displacement of stroke weight. The submitted specimen is both stylistically consistent and technically informative.
12 comments
Ramit Batra
April 26, 2011
Wow!
Astonished at what you creative guys can do with typefaces!
Congrats to the winners. And Kudos, Kriti — for your always-awesome creativity!
Maximiliano R. Sproviero
April 26, 2011
Thanks SOTA for this award.
You made me really happy.
Grant Hutchinson
April 26, 2011
The pleasure is all ours, Maximiliano. Reina is really quite lovely.
Kriti Monga
April 26, 2011
Bad link! Kriti Monga is at: turmericdesign.com and diaries.turmericdesign.com.
Grant Hutchinson
April 26, 2011
Thanks for letting us know, Kriti. We originally linked to the Carbonmade site because it seemed to be the most prevalent. The post has been updated to reflect your new site.
Kriti
April 27, 2011
Thank you Grant! :-)
Sorry about the trouble.
Thanks so much for the award!
Grant Hutchinson
April 27, 2011
No trouble at all. We’re all about the accuracy.
Kriti
April 28, 2011
Hi Grant, the link still seems to be going to carbonmade? Thanks
Grant Hutchinson
April 28, 2011
Now, that is very odd. I could have sworn that I corrected that link, as well as the announcement on the SOTA site. The link is definitely the right one now.
Maximiliano R. Sproviero
April 28, 2011
New Orleans, here we go!
Luke Dorny
May 2, 2011
Congratulations, Erin, Ian, Kriti and Maximiliano!!!
Jörn Loviscach
May 29, 2011
For a more graphic (pun intended) approach to automatic clustering of fonts see my SIGGRAPH 2010 talk:
The Universe of Fonts, Charted by Machine