Alliance Graphique Internationale Grants Prestigious Membership To TDC’s Ksenya Samarskaya

Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI), the acclaimed association that unites the world's leading creative talents in design, advertising, and illustration, has granted a distinguished membership to Ksenya Samarskaya, managing director at the Type Directors Club.

Established in 1951 and headquartered in Baden, Switzerland, AGI is widely regarded as the preeminent member-based community of international graphic and communications designers.  Believing that graphic design is fundamental to how we communicate, educate and inform, the organization promotes design in education, publishing, and lectures, and hosts the annual AGI Congress and AGI Open each year.

Membership is prestigious, and extremely limited, with prospects invited to present work to the annual new member jury on the basis of quality and reputation.  The current list is at 507 members representing 46 countries. Members range from single practitioners to partners in global agencies, with leadership experience in everything from branding to self-publishing, design writing to way-finding, image-making to animation, and typography to experience design.

Since its founding, AGI members have included creative visionaries such as Kiyoshi Awazu, Saul Bass, Gail Bichler, Irma Boom, Margaret Calvert, Matthew Carter, Muriel Cooper, Roger Excoffon, Jessica Helfand, Bruno Munari, Paul Rand, Paula Scher, and others.

“I’m in awe of the impact AGI members have had on the industry, and the world at large. These are individuals I’ve looked up to for a long time,“ said Samarskaya. ”It’s an incredible privilege to be part of this community, and I’m looking forward to connecting and working with everyone there.” 

Samarskaya is an accomplished brand strategist, designer, and type director.  She joined TDC, part of The One Club for Creativity, earlier this year in the newly-created role of managing director, the first in the organization’s 76-year history.  She has since worked closely with TDC director Carol Wahler and the organization’s Advisory Board to reposition and transform the long-running nonprofit to be more diverse, accessible, and relevant to today’s type community and broader audiences.  

She has overseen the relaunch of the Ascenders competition, managed the expansion of the TDC69 competition, introduced global pricing discounts, co-curated Ezhishin, the first-ever conference dedicated to Native North American typography taking place online November 11-13, 2022, and doubled the number of dedicated scholarships offered by the organization.

Before joining TDC, Samarskaya ran her own studio Samarskaya & Partners, where she managed a team of creatives in providing clients with brand positioning, visual communications, and a range of design solutions.  She also managed Solonka, S&P’s type foundry, which provided typographic consultation, custom type design and production, minority script research, and Cyrillic expertise. 

She is also an active educator, designing and facilitating courses at leading universities worldwide including the School of Visual Arts, New York University, Harbour.Space University in Barcelona and Bangkok, IE School of Architecture & Design in Madrid, and others.

The One Club for Creativity, producer of The One Show, ADC Annual Awards, Type Directors Club competition, TDC Ascenders, Young Guns, Young Ones student awards and more, is the world’s foremost non-profit organization whose mission is to support and celebrate the global creative community.  Revenue generated from entries to its global awards shows goes back into the industry to fund programming under the organization’s four pillars: Education, Inclusion & Diversity, Gender Equality, and Creative Development.