The 25th of December is widely recognised as a time for unwrapping much-anticipated gifts.
At Flow, however, the gifts aren’t under a tree, don’t come in festive wrapping and arrive in October (well, for a few of us, at least). These gifts are seen only by a limited few (i.e. strategist Kevin Collins, MD Tiffany Turkington-Palmer and Flow Exhibitions CEO Janet Berger) and may look rather unappealing to the uninitiated – see the image below – but for the typography fans among us, their unassuming appearance masks the promise of some creative, innovative, fresh and possibly awe-inspiring student typography.
The International Society of Typographic Designers (ISTD) Student Assessment Scheme is one that we at Flow are delighted to have been involved with in one form or another since it first came to South Africa 10 years ago.
Tiffany was instrumental in launching the process in South Africa and is now the South African education officer responsible for coordinating and driving the process nationally. Janet was initially involved as a student going through the assessment process and has subsequently been an assessor for the last eight years. And Kevin has been an assessor for the past few years, as his love for typography and good design meant he couldn’t keep himself away!
Student briefs are published on the ISTD website, so all international schemes do the same projects. There is a choice of five briefs and the work can be designed for screen or print applications. The main criteria for evaluation are that the work must reflect typographic competence, and preferably, excellence.
This year’s briefs include challenges like an interpretation of a circus theme, rethinking the form and purpose of books in the modern communication age, “food” as a subject for typographic investigation, and a piece that promotes unsung heroes and heroines. The briefs are always enticingly creative and challenging, and leave themselves wide open to fresh conceptual thinking. It is the alternative, out-of-the-box approach to the briefs with a strong typographic slant that usually impresses the judging panel.
At present we have eight design institutions in South Africa doing the briefs as final-year projects. The lecturers at the institutions submit only their very best work to the scheme, which means we usually have between 20 and 30 projects to assess. As each submission gets about 45 minutes of attention by an assessment team, the student projects get the benefit of really considered and balanced evaluation and feedback.
The assessment team in South Africa is a panel of seven recognised design practitioners and lecturers who all participate because of their love of type. Besides the local team, we also have members of the ISTD educational team in the United Kingdom moderating the assessments in real time to ensure that international standards are maintained.
Students who pass the assessment process become members of the society and can add MISTD (Member of the International Society of Typographic Designers) to their name. This is a highly valued and respected endorsement for any designer seeking employment in a highly competitive market.
Judging commences on Thursday 3 October, and Janet’s biggest challenge, as the entries start arriving, is to keep all hands off the packages so that nothing gets opened before the allotted time!