ISTD Members

ISTD has a growing international membership and actively seeks to develop relationships with individuals, institutions and cognate organisations around the world.

The original assessment scheme operated solely within England for many years. A cycle of assessments now commences in March with the Main Assessment in London. This is followed a month later by the Irish Assessment which is hosted in rotation by institutions and then, in early summer, by the Middle East assessment which has been hosted by Notre Dame University in Lebanon for some eight years.

Our southern hemisphere assessments take place during their Spring – September has for the past eight years seen our South Africa assessment take place in Johannesburg and October will be the time for our third Australasia assessment in Australia. This has, so far handled submissions from Australia and New Zealand.

Particularly valuable to all assessments are the contributions by overseas members and practices that are Corporate Members, some of whom have been introduced to ISTD through the International Awards Scheme.

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Our most recent overseas Assessment was introduced to Australia and New Zealand by Deputy Chair, Becky Chilcott FISTD and ISTD member Annette O’Sullivan.


The inaugural assessment was hosted by Nicki Wragg of Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia, in 2009 with project partner Frost Design. ISTD President, Freda Sack, and Ray Parslow from Frost Design travelled to Melbourne to participate in the assessment with 35 applications from four colleges yielding 24 submissions, with six passes three merits and two commendations.


In 2010 the number of registrations increased by over 100% as the ISTD Student Assessment Scheme gathered momentum.
 ISTD members and experienced assessors, ran workshops throughout the year to offer additional support to participating students.


In 2009, Board member, Nick Kapica, moved to Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand and we look forward to the ISTD gaining notoriety in the region and becoming a catalyst for raising awareness of typographic standards.

The Irish Assessment was inaugurated in 2002 by John McMillan in collaboration with John O’Connor and Brenda Dermody of Dublin Institute of Technology who kindly hosted the first few annual assessments. Subsequently, the network of tutors taking part, by that time representing most of the institutions on the island, established a rotation that has seen us visit Athlone, Belfast, Dun Laoghaire, Limerick, NCAD and the Irish Museum of Printing at Beggar’s Bush in Dublin – a more inspirational venue would be hard to find. Over the years the assessment has become accepted as an event that has developed a network of practicing designers and educators that fosters valuable cooperation. It is geographically based – all students in Ireland, north and south, submit to the Irish Assessment.

The 2011 assessment returned to Beggar’s Bush and we hope to return to Limerick in 2012.

The original assessment was always referred to as the ISTD Student Assessment. With the development of assessments around the world we now use the term Main Assessment rather than United Kingdom (UK) as it receives work from areas not related to the other international locations. Each year we receive work from Canada, continental Europe, Scandinavia and United States as well as the bulk of our submissions from the UK.

The Main Assessment is held in London when we gather around 40 members and tutors for two intense days of assessing hundreds of projects. Teams of two spend on average about 30 minutes on each project including writing the personal report. These teams are moderated a by a team of experienced assessors to ensure parity of marking among the teams and also continuity of the levels of award. This latter point is critical as our standards for award of Pass, Merit or Commendation are not equivalent to any national or institutional standards bur are maintained through continuity within the Society and its ongoing professional and educational activities.

Our commitment to education through the Assessment is further expressed by awarding opportunities for several tutors to be mentored as assessors each year. This continues to be successful and is expressed through the quality of the work that we receive from their students. This is one of the benefits of Institutional Membership.

Notre Dame University (NDU) has hosted annual ISTD Middle East Assessments at their Louaize campus, north of Beirut over 8 years. Long-serving member John Kortbaoui FISTD and his young team of ISTD members have worked hard to maintain the Society's development and involvement in Middle Eastern design education.

The ISTD Middle East Assessment is unique in requiring students to carry out their projects in Arabic and Latin scripts. This provides ISTD and the students with valuable experience, through the comparative assessment by members from Lebanon and the UK. During the past years we have delivered lectures on the work of the society and held workshops over several days, hosted by ISTD ME team member Diane Mikhael Minassian, in Virginia Commonwealth University in Doha, Qatar and in Lebanon.

Our most recent assessment was held in NDU in June, followed by a lecture by ISTD Education Director John McMillan on the successful work from this year’s assessments. Our hope is that we can emulate the format in Australasia, South African and Ireland with the assessment being hosted by other institutions in the Middle East and not being perceived as linked to a single location.

Despite the occasional problems in the Middle East we value the ongoing efforts of our members there and look forward to maintaining, expanding and supporting our members there.

Our longest running overseas assessment is in Johannesburg, South Africa. Instigated in 1999 by Brian Palmer and Tiffany Turkington-Palmer, our South Africa Education Team member.

Over the years, successful sponsorships, particularly with Adobe, have allowed ISTD representatives from UK to travel to South Africa. This has helped to not only develop the assessment scheme, coordinated in SA by Tiffany, but to carry out high profile lectures and education seminars and workshops.

Our colleagues in South Africa are also testing distance assessment methods with UK and Ireland, using skype, email and conference call.

Skype lectures by ISTD Education Officer, John McMillan to audiences in Cape Town and Jo’burg were coordinated by Mohammed Jogie as an event at the 2010 Loerie Awards. These linked with Freda Sack during her series of workshops in South Africa.

We look forward to even closer links with courses in South Africa in the future.