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Beijing Designers of XXL Studio Awarded TDC64 Best in Show for Innovative Book

At our July 18 awards ceremony in New York, the Type Directors Club announced that Xiaoxiang Liu of XXL Studio in Bejing received the Best in Show award in the 64th Annual Communication Design competition. The award-winning entry is a book entitled The Record of Suzhou’s Prosperity: Collected Works of Suzhou Taohuawu Woodblock New Year Painting Exhibition.

Xiaoxiang Liu of Beijing’s XXL Studio proudly displays the TDC’s Best in Show award at Cooper Union in New York City. Photo: Mélanie Duault.

The Type Directors Club annual competitions highlight the best of the best typographic work in both communication and typeface design from studios and individuals in the United States and internationally. The work by Xiaoxiang Liu and his team at XXL Studio was chosen for the prestigious award by a panel of seven highly respected judges.

Detail, The Record of Suzhou’s Prosperity: Collected Works of Suzhou Taohuawu Woodblock New Year Painting binding with die cuts

Detail, special page folding

  • Design: Qingting Guo and Yu Zhang, Beijing
  • Art Direction: Xiaoxiang Liu
  • Studio: XXL Studio
  • Client: Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House
  • Principal Type: FZSongYi, FZShuSong, Adobe Jenson Pro

Designer’s statement: “The special binding of this book uses traditional Chinese wrapped ridge binding, but instead of binding only French-folded pages, the book includes short pages and accordion-folded pages. The extra thickness of accordion-folded pages is balanced so the book stays flat. The two die-cut, sharp shapes on the Swiss-style, cut-flush cover enhance the book’s theme.”

XXL Studio art director Xiaoxiang Liu came to New York to receive the award, which was presented by competition co-chairs Chris Sergio and Catherine Casalino. The award, which takes the form of an oversized “sort” of metal type, was designed by TDC past president Graham Clifford.

Xiaoxiang Liu displays the award-winning book, The Record of Suzhou’s Prosperity, alongside Catherine Casalino and Chris Sergio, the TDC64 competition chairs. Photo: Mélanie Duault.

The 265 competition winners, as well as the winners of the typeface competition, are on display at The Cooper Union’s Gallery 41 until August 10th. Exhibitions of the winners will also travel to many cities around the world, and will be published in the upcoming TDC annual, The World’s Best Type and Typography. The annual and the entire TDC 64 competition campaign were designed by Triboro, a branding and design studio in Brooklyn.

We would like to thank our competition and exhibition sponsors —  Monotype, The Cooper Union, Fordham University, and A2A Studio Solutions.