The World’s Best Typography, Typography 47 by Slanted Publishers brings together the latest award-winning work from the prestigious Type Directors Club (TDC) competition. The book features exceptional examples of communication design, lettering, and typeface design created by designers from across the globe.
When did you last learn why a designer chose a particular typeface? Screens show new lettering every hour, yet they rarely show the reasoning behind it. Typography 47 supplies that reasoning for a selected group of winners.
What Is Typography 47?
Typography 47 is the latest award winners book of the Type Directors Club. It documents award-winning typographic work from around the world. For more than seventy years, the TDC has honored typographic excellence through its annual awards.
Griffin McCabe, Joe Newton, and the Type Directors Club edit the book. Lars Harmsen and Marian Misiak serve as creative directors at Slanted Publishers in Karlsruhe, Germany. Pola Małaczewska completes the design team.
This edition appears in a refreshed, more compact format with expanded content. All in all, it’s way more user-friendly now.
Why Typography 47 Matters to Working Designers
A winners’ annual is like a time capsule of professional taste. Read next to earlier volumes, Typography 47 shows which typographic ideas a jury now rewards.
That comparison gives designers something a trend report cannot. A trend report guesses. A jury decision documents what the profession actually honored in one competition.
I expect the winners to show how designers treat lettering and typeface design side by side. I want to see which projects push the letterforms and which projects push the layout.
What Typography 47 Contains
The Winners
The main body presents the award-winning projects of the global design community. The publisher says they reflect the creativity and diversity of that community. I would phrase it more carefully. A juried annual shows what a jury chose, and every jury has tastes.
Judges’ Choices
The Judges’ Choices section carries the most weight for me. It presents selected works with comments from the jurors and insights from the designers. Both voices matter. Jurors rarely agree on everything, so I expect their comments to reveal where a decision came close, and designers who explain their own choices add a second layer, because the maker and the critic often read the same page of type very differently.
How Slanted Built Typography 47 as an Object
A typography book has to behave like typography. The book measures 17 × 24 cm and runs 352 pages. Printing uses full-color offset with spot colors, which reproduce flat inks more faithfully than CMYK screens do.
The binding is the detail I would put on the cover of this article. Typography 47 is a softcover with open thread-stitching in black thread. The press materials also list changing papers and an embossed foil lamination.
Black thread on an open spine tells the reader that the binding belongs to the design, and thread-stitched books also tend to lie flatter than glued ones, which matters when a type specimen runs across both pages of a spread, and you want every letter in view.
The changing papers raise an open point for me. Will the Judges’ Choices section get its own paper stock? I want to see how Slanted handles that.
What the Press Release Leaves Out
The press release names no jurors. It also gives no count of winning projects. I want both numbers before I judge how broad the selection really is.
A 352-page book can hold a lot of work, or it can hold less work with generous white space. Both approaches work. They simply serve different readers.
Who Should Buy Typography 47?
Designers and Art Directors
Art directors can use the winners to spot current approaches in communication design. Type designers can use the index to see which typefaces and designers the jury recognized this year.
Students and Self-Taught Designers
Students get the clearest benefit from the commentary, because it supplies the critique that self-taught designers often miss. The €45 price in Germany makes that critique realistic for one semester’s budget.
Skip it if you want a how-to guide. Typography 47 documents winners and does not teach typesetting.
Two Predictions for the Typography Annual
First, I predict that commentary will outweigh images as the main reason designers buy a winners book. Feeds already deliver the pictures, and Typography 47 bets on the reasoning instead, so I expect other annuals to add juror and designer voices within the next few award cycles.
Second, price will follow. Typography 47 offers 352 pages of full-color printing for €45, and that sets a reference point other publishers will have to answer.
Typography 47 at a Glance
This table collects the details from the publisher’s press release.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Title | The World’s Best Typography, Typography 47 |
| Publisher | Slanted Publishers |
| Editors | Griffin McCabe, Joe Newton, Type Directors Club |
| Design | Lars Harmsen (CD), Marian Misiak (CD), Pola Małaczewska, Slanted Publishers |
| Release | November 2026 |
| Format | 17 × 24 cm |
| Volume | 352 pages |
| Language | English |
| Printing | Full color offset printing with spot colors |
| Binding | Softcover with open thread-stitching, black thread, changing papers, embossed foil lamination |
| Price | €45 (DE) |
| ISBN | 978-3-69202-013-6 |
Q&A:
What is Typography 47?
Typography 47 is the latest award winners book of the Type Directors Club. It presents award-winning work from the TDC competition.
When does Typography 47 come out?
Slanted Publishers releases Typography 47 in November 2026.
Who publishes and edits Typography 47?
Slanted Publishers publishes the book. Griffin McCabe, Joe Newton, and the Type Directors Club edit it.
What is the Judges’ Choices section in Typography 47?
It presents selected works with comments from the jurors and insights from the designers. A structured index of typefaces and designers adds a practical reference.
How much does Typography 47 cost?
Typography 47 costs €45 in Germany.
What size and binding does Typography 47 have?
It measures 17 × 24 cm and runs 352 pages. The softcover uses open thread-stitching with black thread.
In which language is Typography 47 written?
The book is in English.
What is the ISBN of Typography 47?
The ISBN of Typography 47 is 978-3-69202-013-6.
All images © Slanted Publishers. Browse WE AND THE COLOR’s graphic design section for more.
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