Ruggero Magrì Named Winner of 2019 Catalyst Award
The Society of Typographic Aficionados has announced that Ruggero Magrì of Catania, Italy will be the recipient of the 2019 SOTA Catalyst Award. Created in 2010, the award recognizes a person 25 years of age or younger who demonstrates significant achievement and future promise in the field of typography.
Ruggero will present his work and receive the award certificate at TypeCon2019, taking place this summer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
About The Winner
Ruggero Magrì, 23
Catania, Italy
Ruggero Magrì studied graphic design and art direction at the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan. He developed an interest in typography, which led him to pursue courses in calligraphy sign painting, and lettering. In 2018, he studied in the TypeParis intensive course, receiving a certificate with distinction for his project, Cimer.
He is now working on projects at Typofonderie with Jean François Porchez, and for AlfaType Fonts, a small foundry in Italy. As a freelancer, he tries to have a 360° approach, working on different types of projects at the same time: sign painting, type design, illustrations, and identity design.
A panel of judges comprised of notable and experienced professionals selected Ruggero from among numerous talented and brilliant young creative people from all over the world. Following are comments from some of the judges concerning his entry:
“Ruggero’s project Cimer succinctly demonstrates how weirdness can exist as a spectrum, rather than a binary trait. Exploring optical sizes, type cookers, and all sorts of experimental lettering projects shows that his fascination is genuine and strong. Most of all, I appreciate good spacing, and Gute is hitting like a machine gun.”
“Ruggero’s portfolio shows an impressive skill in type design and lettering, and a passion for understanding the past with a keen desire to solve problems through unconventional approaches. His curiosity and openness for experimentation led to the design of Cimer and Gute, both are beautifully crafted and full of quirk and delight.”
“Inventive type designs and lettering, very good technical and artistic skills, very appealing work.”
SOTA wishes to express a sincere thank you to the judges for their contribution to the 2019 Catalyst Award, and to all of the sponsors that make this award possible. SOTA also wishes to thank everyone who entered the competition and encourages their continued efforts and interests in letterforms.
The SOTA Catalyst Award is presented each year to a young person who has created a significant or important body of original work a field related to typography. Recipients of the award have included Satya Rajpurohit (2010), Erin McLaughlin (2011), Niko Skourtis (2012), Kyle Read (2013), Krista Radoeva (2014), Shiva Nallaperumal (2015), Roxane Gataud (2016), Ramakrishna Saiteja (2017), Frida Medrano (2018), Ruggero Magrì (2019), and Anagha Narayanan (2020)