News: BeST Awards 09 – Brit­ten Award

Type designer Joseph Church­ward hon­oured with Brit­ten Award

Joseph Church­ward, Brit­ten Award win­ner for 2009 at the BeSt Awards. Pho­to­graphy: Amelia Handscomb.

The Design­ers Insti­tute of New Zea­l­and’s (DINZ) last night gave its highest hon­our to type designer Joseph Church­ward. The Brit­ten, named after New Zea­l­and mech­an­ical engin­eer John Brit­ten, who designed a world-record-setting motor­cycle, is the highest recog­ni­tion given by the Design­ers Insti­tute to an out­stand­ing indi­vidual for lead­er­ship, vis­ion and achievement.

Church­ward is a Samoan-born type designer who cut his pro­fes­sional teeth work­ing for ad agency Charles Haines in the late-1960s. He left to con­cen­trate on freel­ance design work, which became almost exclus­ively type design in later years. In 1969, he foun­ded Church­ward Inter­na­tional Typefaces, and went on to license fonts to Ger­man typeface foundry and dis­trib­utor Ber­thold Foto­types. He has won numer­ous awards for his typeface designs, which num­ber some­where in the vicin­ity of 600 (604 accord­ing to the intro­duc­tion at the awards) unique alpha­bets, each tak­ing 150 – 300 hours to com­plete. He is still draw­ing them today from his home in Wellington.

Church­ward with an example of his work, some let­ters from his ‘Te Tiki’ typeface. Pho­to­graphy: Amelia Handscomb.

The qual­ity of Churchward’s work is reflec­ted in his inter­na­tional repu­ta­tion; it can be seen on bill­boards, news­pa­pers, and other prin­ted media around the globe. Wel­ling­ton res­id­ents may recall his masthead designs for the Even­ing Post and The Domin­ion, before those two papers merged to form the Domin­ion Post in 2002. The Kling­spor Museum, a museum of typo­graphy and cal­li­graphy in Ger­many lists Joseph amongst the world’s most emin­ent typo­graphic artists.

In 2008, a spe­cial exhib­i­tion was set up for his art at the Museum of New Zea­l­and – Te Papa Tongarewa and a bio­graphy on his life and work was pub­lished earlier this year.

One of the DINZ coun­cil mem­bers had this to say of Joseph: “When I first became aware of Mr Churchward’s accom­plish­ments, it abso­lutely blew me away as he has achieved so much without any ego and without his name flash­ing in neon lights. His accom­plish­ments are not only sig­ni­fic­ant on a national scale, but place him highly on the global stage. He is a pion­eer and I admire his con­tin­ued ded­ic­a­tion to the craft of design. He is a true inspiration.”

A role model for Pacific peoples, Joseph has worked nation­ally and inter­na­tion­ally to raise the pro­file of New Zea­l­and design, has shown true lead­er­ship and vis­ion and has enjoyed immense success.

An exten­ded bio­graphy of Joesph Church­ward can be read in ProDesign (issue 103).