Rubén Fontana
2020 TDC Medalist
Rubén Fontana is an Argentinian graphic designer, type designer, and teacher. His course curriculum for Typography and Editorial Design, published in Pensamiento Tipográfico, was used as reference for the courses in Typography at universities in Latin America. He was the thirty-third recipient of the TDC Medal.
Career
The Type Directors Club has announced that Rubén Fontana has been chosen as the recipient of the coveted TDC Medal for a lifetime of outstanding contributions to the field of typography. The award presentation will be held Wednesday, November 18, 2020.
Rubén Fontana was born in Buenos Aires in 1942. He began his career in the Department of Graphic Design at the Instituto Di Tella, directed by Juan Carlos Distéfano.
He was one of the founders of the Bachelor of Graphic Design at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, where he founded the classes of Typography and Editorial Design. The curriculum of his course, published in Pensamiento Tipográfico, was used as reference for the courses in Typography at several universities in Latin America. At the University of Buenos Aires, he was also the Director of the Master’s in Typography.
He was the Editor in Chief of magazine tipoGráfica from 1987 to 2006. In 2001 he organized the first Letras Latinas exhibit, and later, its biennials in 2004 and 2006, gathering the typographic production of Latin America.
Amongst other typefaces, he designed Andralis, Chaco, Distéfano, and Palestina. One of his typefaces, Fontana ND, received the TDC’s Certificate of Excellence. He was one of the chosen winners in the international competition of type design Bukva:Raz!, sponsored by the Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI), in Moscow.
He was awarded the Platinum Konex in Visual Design and Communication; the Cuban National Design Prize; a distinction in the XIV National Encounter of Graphic Design Schools by the Mexican Association of Graphic Design Schools (ENCUADRE) and the Faculty of Design of the Popular Autonomous University of the State of Puebla (UPAEP); the Spanish Association of Design Professionals Award in the category of Corporate Identity and Typography; a tribute in the International Congress of Typography in Valencia; an acknowledgement for his career as a designer and teacher by the Buenos Aires Legislature.
For the past 30 years, he has been developing his professional activities next to Zalma Jalluf in FontanaDiseño.
Read more about Mr. Fontana’s work in this recent piece from Eye Magazine.