SOTA Typography Award Honors Fred Smeijers

The Society of Typographic Aficionados is pleased to announce that type designer Fred Smeijers has been honored with the 2016 SOTA Typography Award. The presentation took place on Saturday, August 26th, 2016, at the Crowne Plaza Seattle as a part of TypeCon2016.Chaired by board member Corey Holms, the award jury included Gareth Hague, Sibylle Hagmann, Ian Lynam, Yves Peters, and Helen Keyes.Smeijers’s impressive history in the type world — launching OurType, creating standout typefaces such as Quadraat, Arnhem, and Fresco, as well as writing and speaking on the subject of typography — brought him to the attention of the jury for SOTA’s 14th annual Typography Award. However, this description of his work by Yves Peters sums up the jury’s reasoning behind their selection:

“What makes Fred such a terrific typeface designer is that he manages to incorporate history while creating original typefaces, without slavishly following any existing models. He understands typographic history like few others can, and still creates unmistakably contemporary designs.”

Each year, the SOTA Typography Award is presented to an outstanding member of the type community. Recipients of the award have included Hermann Zapf (2003), Ed Benguiat (2004), Matthew Carter (2005), Adrian Frutiger (2006), David Berlow (2007), Gerrit Noordzij (2008), Gerard Unger (2009), Doyald Young (2010), Erik Spiekermann (2011), Mike Parker (2012), Zuzana Ličko (2013), Fiona Ross (2014), and Robert Slimbach (2015).