Type Champions Award 2019: Alibaba, The Guardian, NYT & more honorees to note

And the winners are in! Monotype introduced the inaugural recipients of the Type Champions Award, a new program that recognizes brands for their creative, innovative, and memorable use of typography in developing and maintaining their brand identities. 

“To celebrate that value, we are introducing a new program, the Type Champions Award” noted Monotype earlier this fall in this thank you note to brands that support the value of typography overall. 

The honorees are obviously brands which “demonstrate a focus on type in building their brand message, marketing & advertising efforts, and overall customer experience. This includes: Type consistency across the brand experience, an emphasis on future-proofing the brand through typography selection, authenticity in brand/creative, creative approach to advertising (use of new/emerging channels, unique strategy for engaging new/existing customers, mix of creative asset types) and leadership that vocally champions the value of type and creative.”

“Type plays a critical role in brand identity, and some brands are using type in their creative campaigns in a way that stands out as strategic, thought-provoking and innovative,” said James Fooks-Bale, Monotype's creative director of this award program which recognized the companies that use type “to stand out among their peers, and create authentic, consistent and relevant brand identities.”

After an open nomination period and an extensive review process, the following brands are this year's Type Champions Award honorees:

& Other Stories
Alibaba Group
Audi
Dropbox
Juventus
Mailchimp
Ogilvy
Southwest Airlines
Squarespace
The Guardian
The New School
The New York Times

Last but not least Monotype launched a brand new e-book on trends in type design, often an indicator of broader shifts in brand strategy. 

“During the nomination process for the Type Champions Award, we asked creative professionals and our expert panel to identify the most prevalent trends driving design now and into the future” notes Monotype.  

Per the downloadable report the “5 Type Trends for Brands to Consider in 2020” are the following.  

1. The need for global language coverage

2. The rise of variable fonts

3. Emphasis on geometric sans serifs

4. Type as icon: Inline and engraving

5. A.B.R. always be rebranding

Download the report here.