Luo Songsong

    songsongluo@126.com

    TOKYO TDC 2014, the annual touring exhibition of the Tokyo Type Directors Club (Tokyo TDC), is being hosted at the OCT Art & Design Gallery in Shenzhen until May 10.

    It is the club’s third exhibition in Shenzhen, displaying original works by top global type designers and creating a platform for exchange. The works on display are the award-winning submissions from 2014, as well as a selection of the best works from the past decade.

    The Grand Prix Winner “Symphony for a Beloved Sun” is a book design by the U.K. studio Brighten the Corners for artist Anish Kapoor, who held her first major solo show in Germany last year. Taking the show as inspiration, the cover of the catalogue is stained with red oil paint that seeps into the first pages. The paper was edged with a red cut and the whole thing was bound with red thread, continuing the color scheme throughout.

    In addition, a music video for the song “Everything But the Love” was produced using only typography for the Japanese rock band, HaKU. All the letters and characters were derived from the lyrics and were established as a language landscape in a 3D CG space. Designers produced this video to explore how readability changes with time, perspective, and speed and sought new perceptions and environments for visual and audio images.

    Tokyo TDC was founded in 1987. Since its beginnings, Tokyo TDC has always stood at the leading edge of Asian typography, attracting the admiration of many font designers. Since the turn of the century, increasing numbers of Chinese designers have been taking part in Tokyo TDC’s annual competition.