Auckland-based design agency Onfire Design recognised at prestigious TDC71 competition

Creative innovation and extraordinary craft were on full display in the global winners in the prestigious TDC71 Competition, announced by the Type Directors Club, the world’s leading typography organisation. Auckland-based design agency Onfire Design, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, has emerged as one of 170 winners in this year’s competition for its design work for Salash Delicatessen.

Salash Delicatessen is a small, family-run smallgoods business based in Kumeu and a regular at food markets throughout the Auckland region. Hailing from Northern Serbia, the family has been refining how they make and produce dry-cured meats for four generations. This is the brand’s unique point of difference.

To prepare the brand for national grocery channels, a rebrand was undertaken to define its story and proposition better. The brand wordmark was a crucial part of this refresh. Exploring the family’s Eastern European history and the region’s visual culture, the bespoke drawn wordmark draws subtle inspiration from the widely used Cyrillic alphabet, with exaggerated sharp serifs that speak to butchery, knives and hooks used to hang meat up during drying. With a national flag-inspired colour palette, the wordmark is oversized on new pack formats. Proud and true-to-form, loud as Serbians are when talking about food.

Says Sam Allan, Founder, Onfire Design: “Winning a global award like the TDC for the second time is testament to the creativity and craft of Onfire’s team. Congratulations to our firestarter team, I’m always blown away by their talent! It goes to show you don’t need to go overseas for world class design, it’s right on your doorstep.”

This year’s esteemed global jury awarded a total of 170 TDC71 Certificates of Typographic Excellence – 104 in Communication Design, 37 in Type Design, and 29 in Lettering – to entrants from 26 countries.

Leading the way with seven coveted TDC71 Certificate wins, all in Communication Design, is Pentagram New York.  They include five in Print or Digital – Brand Identity System, one each for Barco de Papel, Helions, Williamstown, Windham Campbell, and The Roald Dahl Story Company.  The firm also has two wins in Print or Digital – Logotype/Monogram – Single, one for Barco de Papel and the other for Helions.  

The New York Times Magazine New York has six winning entries, all in Communication Design, Publication/Editorial – Editorial/Catalog/Magazine – Series, for “The Weirdest, Wildest Performances of the Year”, “The Olympics Issue”, “The Lives They Lived”, “Forget the Academy. Our Nominees Are…”, “The Retirement Issue”, and “The Culture Issue”.

In addition, The New York Times Kids has three TDC71 Certificate wins, all in Communication Design, Publication/Editorial – Book/Magazine Cover – Series, for “2024 Covers”, “The Elections Issue“, and “The Games Issue”.  The New York Times, working with Daisy Chain Studio London, has two wins in Communication Design for “State of The Times”, one each in Motion – Credits or Titles, and in Print or Digital – Brand Identity System.

With five TDC71 wins is Typotheque The Hague, all in Type Design.  They include one each for “Pristine” in Single Axis Type Family, “Zed Icons” in Emoji/Symbol Typeface, “November Mongolian” in Multiple Axis Type Family, and “November Tibetan” in Multiple Axis Type Family.  They also won a certificate working with Hagilda Tel Aviv for “Rapida Hebrew + Arabic” in Single Axis Type Family.

The End Design Guangzhou has four TDC71 Certificate wins, all in Communication Design for client Shenzhen Graphic Design Association.  They include two for “Motion & Graphic Typography Design Exhibition” – one each in Motion – Animated Posters – Single, and Print or Digital – Brand Identity System – and two for “China TDC 2024”, one each in Motion – Animated Posters – Single, and Print or Digital – Brand Identity System.

With three TDC71 Certificate wins each are Baillat Studio Montreal, Kevin Cantrell Studio Mantua, mdbuero Zurich, Untitled Macao Macao, and The New York Times for Kids New York.  

A showcase of all TDC71 Certificate winners can be viewed here.

Jury Presidents for this year’s TDC71 competition were three members of the TDC Advisory Board: Min Lew, managing partner, ECD, Base Design in New York, for Communication Design; David Jon Walker, principal, Rhealistic, New Haven; Professor of Art in Graphic Design, Yale University, for Lettering; and Sahar Afshar, type designer, founding partner, Dogray Type Foundry in London for Type Design.

TDC71 Best of Discipline and Judges’ Choice recipients will be announced on May 13, 2025 during The One Club for Creativity’s annual Creative Week in New York.  That’s also the date for a special TDC71 Exhibition of winning work, from 7:00 pm-9:00 pm at Location05, 450 West 31st St, 7th floor.

All TDC71 winners receive a Certificate of Typographic Excellence and digital seal certifying their work is among the world’s best of the year.  Winning work will also be featured in the highly respected TDC Annual, The World’s Best Typography, and showcased in eight exhibitions that travel to museums, schools and design organizations around the world. 

Across its three juries, TDC71 had native experts for writing systems spanning Arabic, Cyrillic, Indic, CJK, Thai, and select African scripts.  The addition of these and other judges in recent years is a reflection of TDC’s commitment to have a greater number of the most appropriate experts judging designs for which they have a deep knowledge.

Branding for this year’s competition was created by Paprika, based in Montréal, with fonts generously donated by Klim Type Foundry, in Wellington, NZ.

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