The Gerrit Noordzij Prize is given to

type designers A type designer is a person who designs typefaces. (The term "typographer" is sometimes misapplied to type designers: a typographer is a person who arranges existing typefaces to lay out a pagesee typography) A partial list of notable type desi ...

and

typographers Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing (leading), and ...

for extraordinary contributions to the fields of type design, typography and type education. The prize, initiated by Anno Fekkes during the 1996 ATypI conference in The Hague, is awarded every three years by the

Royal Academy of Art The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

together with the Museum Meermanno, under the auspices of the Dr. P.A. Tiele Trust. The prize is named after

Gerrit Noordzij Gerrit Noordzij (2 April 1931 – 17 March 2022) was a Dutch typographer, typeface designer, and author. He started teaching letters and calligraphy at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 1960. Motivated to make type accessible to his stude ...

, who was a professor of typeface design at the Royal Academy of Art (a course that was founded by him). For the continuity of the prize, the Gerrit Noordzij Fund was created.

The award

By tradition, the award itself is designed by the previous winner. In addition to this, each time the prize is awarded, an exhibition about the work of the previous winner is organized, accompanied by a publication. Through the years, the jury has consisted of: * Ada Lopes Cardozo (head of the

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscipli ...

department at the Royal Academy of Arts). *

Erik Spiekermann Erik Spiekermann (born 30 May 1947 in Stadthagen, Lower Saxony) is a German typographer, designer and writer. He is an honorary professor at the University of the Arts Bremen and ArtCenter College of Design. Biography Spiekermann studied art hi ...

(type designer, graphic designer and co-director of

FSI FontShop International FontShop International was an international manufacturer of digital typefaces ( fonts), based in Berlin. It was one of the largest digital type foundries. The ''FontFont'' library of fonts contains designs by 160 type designers, among them renown ...

) *

Fred Smeijers Fred Smeijers ( Eindhoven, 1961) is a Dutch type designer, researcher and writer, educated at the ArtEZ Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Arnhem in the early 1980s. Smeijers is the creative director and co-founder of the typeface design and publis ...

(type designer and teacher of type design) * Gerard Unger (professor of typography at the

University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...

Department of Arts) *

(type designer and teacher of type design) * Jack Verduyn Lunel (director of the Royal Academy of Arts) * Leo Voogt (director of Museum Meermanno) *

Petr van Blokland Petr van Blokland (born 1956, Gouda) is a Dutch graphic designer, software author and typeface designer who lives in Delft. Contributions to typeface technology He has made numerous important contributions to the adoption of software in typefa ...

(type designer and teacher at the Royal Academy of Arts)

Laureates

* 1996:

(Netherlands) * 2001:

(Netherlands) * 2003:

(Germany) * 2006:

Tobias Frere-Jones Tobias Frere-Jones (born Tobias Edgar Mallory Jones; August 28, 1970) is an American type designer who works in New York City. He operates the company Frere-Jones Type and teaches typeface design at the Yale School of Art MFA program. Among his ty ...

(United States) * 2009:

Wim Crouwel Willem Hendrik "Wim" Crouwel (; 21 November 1928 – 19 September 2019) was a Dutch graphic designer, type designer, and typographer. Early life and education Between 1947 and 1949, he studied Fine Arts at Academie Minerva in Groningen, th ...

(Netherlands) * 2012:

Karel Martens Karel Martens (born 1939) is a Dutch freelance graphic designer, specialized in typography Biography Martens was born in Mook en Middelaar in 1939 and graduated from the Arnhem Academy of Art and Industrial Arts of the Netherlands in 1961 where ...

(Netherlands) * 2015:

Cyrus Highsmith Cyrus Highsmith (born 1973) is an American typeface designer, illustrator, and author. After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1997, he worked at Font Bureau in Boston as Senior Type Designer until founding his own type foundry, ...

(United States)

Publications

Different books have been published about, in honor of, or presented at the exhibitions: * Ben Bos, Tony Brook, Tobias Frere-Jones, Karel Martens, David Quay: ''Wim Crouwel - Gerrit Noordzij Prize'', The Hague (2012). * Dawn Barrett, David Berlow, Matthew Carter (et al.): ''Tobias Frere-Jones Gerrit Noordzij Prize Exhibition'', Amsterdam (2009). * FontShop Benelux (ed.): ''e - Erik Spiekermann'', The Hague/De Pinte (2006). * Fred Smeijers (ed. by Robin Kinross): ''Type now: a manifesto, plus work so far'', London (2003). (Published in honor of the exhibition ''Fred Smeijers: work so far''). * Mathieu Lommen, Anno Fekkes, Jan Willem Stas (et al.): ''Het primaat van de pen: een workshop letterontwerpen met Gerrit Noordzij'', The Hague (2001).

References

* Dawn Barrett, David Berlow, Matthew Carter (et al.): ''Tobias Frere-Jones Gerrit Noordzij Prize Exhibition'', Amsterdam (2009). * Tobias Frere-Jones on the Gerrit Noordzij Priz
Part 1: 'Outgoing'
an
Part 2: 'Incoming'

External links

*
Website of Museum Meermanno
*
Website of the Dr. P.A. Tiele Trust
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724170747/http://www.tiele-stichting.nl/Default.asp?id=910 , date=2011-07-24
Website of the Royal Academy of Arts
Awards established in 1996 Dutch awards Design awards