!nderstanding type in visual communication:

An approach to define basics of Cyrillic for non-native graphic designers

Iana Vekshyna

Bachelor's Thesis in Graphic Design & Visual Communication Berlin International University of Applied Sciences !nderstanding Cyrillic type in visual communication:

An approach to define the basics of for non-native graphic designers

Iana Vekshyna

Spring Semester 2020 Bachelor's Thesis in Graphic Design & Visual Communication Berlin International University of Applied Sciences Advisor: Prof. Alexander Tibus Second Examiner: Ben Wittner, Dipl.-Des. Contents

1. !troductio! 4 6. Letters 6.1 General information 28 2. Methodology 5 6.2 Peculiarities of Cyrillic characters 30 6.3 Conclusion 53 3. Releva!ce 3.1 Basic information 8 7. Project 55 3.2 Fashion & trends 9 3.3 Issues & solutions 11 8. Bibliography 8.1 Books 62 4. 8.2 Websites 62 4.1 Origin 16 8.3 Tables & figures 65 4.2 Petrine reform 20 4.3 Soviet period 22 9. Appe!dix 9.1 Preliminary interviews 68 5. 9.2 Interview with type designer 70 5.1 General guidelines 25 9.3 Interview with graphic designer 75 Introduction Methodology

In the current conditions of active development of globalisation constant inter- The topic of the thesis is aimed at readers, who are not native to Cyrillic script, action between cultures strongly influences society’s everyday life. People learn and don’ possess the knowledge of and speaking Russian or other Cyril- about other cultures, get exposed to products, hear the news about countries that lic-based . On the stages a preliminary research was conducted they didn’t even suspect existed several years ago. Individual cultural landscapes in order to understand how non-native graphic designers perceive Cyrillic script, are expanding and becoming more diverse thanks to the development of digital and to identify the possible approaches of explaining the topic. Short interviews media. with 5 respondents (graphic designers from 5 different countries, non-native to Cyrillic script) have shown, that interviewees perceive Cyrillic characters as sym- and script are two essential components of cultural identification. For bols with deep history and a requirement of understanding the details in order visual communicators in particular, language and more specifically, type, is one to work with them. Inability to read the text was mentioned as one of the major of the most powerful tools for conveying messages and creating meaning. Cur- obstacles in working with the script. Respondents have also mentioned that Cyril- rent design practices show that proficiency in foreign languages is not particularly lic script visually reminds . (Appendix 9.1, 66) necessary in order to work with foreign script systems.¹ Studying and learning the distinctive typographic rules and type structure characteristics of the script prove Therefore it was decided to base the explanation of the topic on the comparison to an adequate base for creating successful multi-scriptual design projects. of Cyrillic and Latin type, as the closest by origin and visual characteristics, and most common script in graphic design field. esearchR also contains a This thesis specifically focuses on the rules, peculiarities and history of Cyril- table of Russian with approximate English phonetic equivalents (page 7), lic type. Foreign scripts might look alien and even somewhat intimidating at first which might help the non-native audience to acquire the primary skills of reading sight, however Cyrillic is very close to Latin in terms of origin, development and Cyrillic text. typographic rules. Latin graphic is the foundation of modern Cyrillic type. In the “Letters” chapter the characters of are either structur- Like Latin, Cyrillic is a script written from left to right. Characters in both types ally compared to the corresponding Latin characters or demonstrate, how Cyril- share basic common features, such as hight, width, contrasts, angles of bowls, lic characters can be created out of Latin ones by the method of type . serifs, stems, strokes. 16 uppercase and 12 lowercase characters in modern Cyril- The aim of this approach is to not only teach graphic designers to identify good lic have identical in Latin. ² quality fonts, but also familiarise with the alphabet.

The research is based on primary and secondary sources. The primary sources are the above mentioned structured preliminary interviews, and semi-structured interviews with Cyrillic type and graphic design specialists from and (Appendix 9.2 & 9.3, pages 68-76). The secondary source is the analysis of relevant literature and articles from English- and Russian-speaking sources.

1. Wittner, “Bi-Scriptual”, 7. 4 2. Yukechev, “Cyrillic Type Travel Book”, 166. 5 Russia! alphabet

There is a difference in the way pronounce the letters of the alphabet, and the sounds they actually represent. The following Table 1 provides the approximate English phonetic equivalents of each of the Russian alphabet. ³

Aa Бб Вв Гг Дд A as in "father" as in "bad" as in "vine" G as in "good" as in "do" Ее Ёё Жж Зз Ии as in "yes" as in "your" ZH as in "pleasure" as in "zoo" I as in "police" Йй Кк л м н as in "toy" as in "kept" as in "line" as in "map" as in "not" о п р с т as in "more" P as in "pet" rolled S as in "set" T as in "top" у Фф Хх Цц Чч as in "tool" F as in "face" as in "hole" TS as in "" CH as in "check" Шш Щщ Ъъ Ыы Ьь SH as in "sharp" SHCH as in "fresh cheese" IH as in "ill" Ээ Юю Яя as in "met" as in "use" as in "yard"

6 3. Wikipedia, “Russian alphabet”. countries. It is still only being taught in about a dozen high education institutions. However in the last ten years the industry has made a strong push towards the R v n revival of Cyrillic type and graphic design. This has encouraged the emergence of ele a ce new type foundries, the formation of a relevant professional community and coop- 3.1 Basic i!formatio! eration with Western designers.

Today the Cyrillic alphabet is used by around 250 million people in the world.₄ The largest amount of users stem from Russia, Ukraine and . Upon Bul- garia entering the in 2007, Cyrillic became the third official 3.2 Fashio! & tre! script of the European Union, after Latin and Greek scripts. 5 The extended Cyril- lic alphabet is used by more than 100 languages and includes more than 145 let- ters 6, but this book focuses on the exploration of Russian alphabet and its 33 In the last 15 years Cyrillic type has become more visible in Western countries. letters in particular, since it’s the most used. After the collapse of and the fall of the Iron Curtain, which sepa- rated the Eastern block from the developing West, a new generation of artists and The Cyrillic alphabet was invented specifically for its languages and special designers has been given an opportunity to join the world arena and demonstrate sounds. A single letter represents a single sound, which makes the reading pro- their talent. Emerging Eastern European fashion brands, such as Gosha Rubchin- cess fairly easy. Each word is pronounced the way it is written, unlike for example sky, Vatements, Andrey Artyomov made a major break through across runways in in French or English where a combination of several letters may produce different Paris, London and , proudly flashing Cyrillic slogans and a trashy style of sounds. For a foreigner, it would be enough to learn the sounds that each letter the underprivileged soviet working class. 8 As for the graphic design world, inter- represents, in order to be able to read straight away. While Latin-based languages national interest was allegedly sparked in 2003 after the launch of “Russian Crimi- use to represent special regional sounds, in Cyrillic the characters often nal Tattoo Encyclopaedia” published by Fuel. tend to change their rather then acquire a diacritical element. 7 For foreigners, Cyrillic letters looked mysterious and exotic, similar to a trend in Japanese tattoos earlier. Both Western and Eastern European youth quickly took on a style that represented the crazy, adventurous and controversial life of the post-Soviet 90s – an association with exciting, exotic, trashy youth, which they Кк Ққ Ҟҟ Ҡҡ Ӄӄ Ҝҝ never had. This way Cyrillic quickly found its way into the underground scene, and from there was adopted by musicians and designers in a search for a rough and unpolished expression. “Cyrillic letters – flat, angular and heavy – are not loved Ее Ёё Ӗӗ Ҽҽ Ҿҿ Єє for their beauty, but for being different, alienating and even slightly intimidating,” Fig.1 Variations of Cyrillic letters K and E in different languages mentions Anastasiia Fedorova in her article for the Calvert Journal. 9

Cyrillic type as we know it today is still in development. In the 18th century it went The social and political situation of the last two decades in has through a drastic redesign executed by a person, who was neither a type designer also greatly influenced the popularisation of the script. Before then noone had nor had any knowledge of the field. In addition to this, decades of stagnation in an idea what was going on in that part of the world, but in the last 25 years East- during the Soviet times have resulted in a 300 year quest for harmony ern European countries through several loud political statements, even revo- and a unified construction system of all characters, which continues today. Due to lutions, have turned people’s heads in their direction. The world was given the its bumpy history, Cyrillic type design is a fairly young discipline in Eastern European chance to finally observe and rethink the image of post-soviet countries, thus

4. Wikipedia, “Cyrillic script”. 8. Raspopina, “Spelling it out: why Cyrillic slogan 5. Wittner, “Bi-Scriptual”, 71. streetwear is the new punk uniform for post-Soviet teens”. 6. version 10.0. 9. Fedorova, “Word up: how Cyrillic typography 8 7. Yukechev, “Cyrillic Type Travel Book”, 164. 9 became the for underground fashion”. creating the concept of the “new east”, which was quickly appropriated by pop- culture. Although this “new east” is rather a myth and collection of stereotypes 3.3 Issues & solutio!s and attributes, than a true depiction of post-Soviet life. 10

Nevertheless, Cyrillic started spreading, and the lack of knowledge about it became apparent. One of the biggest issues with the script still today is that very few type- faces include Cyrillic family. When planning a project with Cyrillic, designer should be prepared to face serious limitations in the choice of . In most cases, fonts developed in Western countries don’t include Cyrillic at all. And those which do, however, sometimes make clear mistakes in the characters, making the type- face a bad choice for graphic designers in the sense of readability, balance and aesthetic impression. Even type design giants like Monotype and Hoefler&Co. have typefaces in their collection that have pretty contentious issues with Cyrillic part. 11 This mostly seems to happen when type foundries trust non-native design- ers to develop the without consulting the specialists from Eastern European countries. k Fig.2 Fashion campaign of Ukrainian Fig.3 “Style” turtleneck by American дублёнка designer Yulia Yefimtchuk designer Heron Preston Fig.6 Joanna Sans Nova, Regular: letter б has a vague tail and weird thickness distribu- tion; letter л looks unfinished, left stroke has an unsuitable solution for the overall style of the ; Cyrillic к has a different construction from Latin k for no reason лобода

Fig.7 Gotham, Book: oldstyle triangular shape of д and л seems like an unreasonable solu- tion for such a modern and live font; comparing to Cyrillic, Latin looks much softer and smoother

ФЕОДАЛКА Fig.8 , Regular: К, Д and Л are too narrow, Е is too wide, Ф is too small, left Fig.4 Collaboration of Russian designer Fig.5 Socks by Russian brand stroke of Л is too straight and should be more tilted to the right – it is an outdated way Gosha Rubchinskiy with Adidas Sputnik 1985 of designing this letter

10. Fedorova, “Post-Soviet fashion: identity, history 10 and the trend that changed the industry”. 11 11. Danilova, “How to tell the good font from bad”. In 2018 there was a big typographic scandal at FIFA World Cup Russia. Portuguese experimental, good quality fonts. Particularly notable are Paratype, Brownfox, brand agency Brandia Central presented identity for the championship, accompa- Letterhead, Contrast Foundry, CSTM Fonts, type.today and type.tomorrow. nied by the typeface “Dusha” that was developed specifically for the cause. It was supposed to be based on Russian traditional historic letterforms and compliment Although typographic rules for Cyrillic are not extremely different fromLatin, mis- the rounded . According to the claims of the type designer, who was hired to use also occurs in the graphic design field. A common trick, which foreign design- produce the functional font, was given drawings of the characters created by ers try to pull off, is using Cyrillic letters as a quirky substitute orf Latin. An exam- the studio’s Russian intern and was forbidden to make any changes. 12 As a result, ple is a hoodie designed by H&M with meaningless set of characters ЦДИ the world has seen a typeface with unnaturally distorted characters in both Latin ЦЙІЗD. For any native Cyrillic user this looks like random letters accidentally and Cyrillic sets. On top of that, the obviously decorative type that was intended for typed on keyboard, despite the H&M designers actually intending to write HUMANITY limited use in headlines and titles, was misused in big text settings. UNITED. Tricks like this tend to look more like cultural appropriation than good design. A more elegant solution would be the phrase in Cyrillic transliter- ation. Since each Cyrillic character represents one sound, it is quite easy to trans- literate any word from any language based on its spelling. This method is quite trendy in fashion at the moment, and might give the design a stylish humorous twist.

Fig.9 Latin and Cyrillic characters from the official FIFA 2018 “Dusha” typeface with highlights on questionable details from the editors of “type.today” journal

It doesn’t mean however, that Western type foundries and designers can’t be trusted. Fig.10 H&M hoodie with Fig.11 T-shirt saying “I don’t like you” Although, it is always a good idea to consult a native user of the script when work- НЦМДИТУ ЦЙІТЗD slogan in Cyrillic by Sputnik1985 ing on a project that contains Cyrillic type. Typotheque is one company with a large number of Cyrillic fonts developed by Russian type designers. Lucas Fonts Of course, graphic design projects with Cyrillic are more common in the countries (Berlin, ) and Black Foundry (Paris, ) are also considered to be of native users. Nevertheless, there are quite a few successful projects, realised by one of the best Western studios producing Cyrillic. 13 With both studios counting Western designers and design studios. type designers from Russia and Ukraine in their teams. Besides, there is a grow- ing number of Eastern European type foundries, producing more and more fresh,

12. Ruderman, “Font scandal at FIFA World Cup”. 12 13. Semenov, “Bad and good Cyrillic”. 13 Fig.14 Poster for a master class “Land art sculpture” Fig.15 Poster for Strelka institute by Anna Kulachek by groza.design

Fig.12 A poster for Ping Pong Club by Ira Ivanova

Fig.16 Booklet for traveling series “The Sofia Issue” by miguel anønimo

Fig.13 Visual identity & album cover for NoPorn music project by Bruno Ponceano 14 15 As in many other cases of language and script development, religion and politics played the major role in development of Cyrillic. It all started with the initiative of H y Louis the German of Bavaria to convert the Slavic lands that were under his con- istor trol to Christianity in 831 CE. As a result of political and religious affairs, it was - cided that biblical scholarship had to be translated to , that were 4.1 Origi! still lacking a proper . 16

Cyrillic is a phonetic writing system that was developed in 9th–10th centuries in the First Bulgarian . Graphically the basis of the script takes origins in Eastern Greek , but phonemic structure was inherited from earlier Structurally, Cyrillic script system underwent three main stages of development: Glagolitic. 14 Invention of the first Slavic alphabet – Glagolitic – by Christian missionaries Cyril (this is where the name “Cyrillic” comes from) and Methodius in 863 CE in Great 1. Moravia (now territories of Czechia, , , Hungary, and perhaps ). 17 Development of early Cyrillic alphabet by the pupils of Cyril and Methodius in 893 CE. This time the alphabet was redesigned and developed based mostly on the Greek letterforms, some characters were taken from Hebrew and Latin. 18 However it still kept the phonemic system of Glagolitic because of the sounds in Slavic languages, which could not be represented by other . Until today

Fig.17 Codex Tischendorfianus IV, 10th century, an example of Greek uncial script that there is no proof regarding how, why and when this happened, so the date and served as an inspiration for Cyrillic alphabet 2. participants are purely theoretical. 19

For a long time it was believed that Cyrillic was the oldest Slavic alphabet, until “Latinisation” of Cyrillic by the reforms of Russian Emperor in the discovery of 11th century Boyanski palimpsest in 1840s. It was a Gospel book, 1708-1710. Peter was obsessed with an idea of bringing closer originally written in Glagolitic, but in the 13th century the parchment was scrubbed to progressive European culture and politics. These reforms affected the - off and rewritten in early Cyrillic. Luckily the traces of the previous writing were still too. Letters were redesigned to look more like Latin, but this was done in such visible enough to set the hypothesis for the primacy of the Glagolitic over the Cyril- an amateur way, that Cyrillic only reached its standard letterforms in the 19th cen- lic. Early specimens of Glagolitic are very rare to find and cannot be dated.15 3. tury, hundreds of years after the development of high standards of Western type.

When it comes to the graphical styles of Cyrillic script, first version developed by the students of Cyril and Methodius was called ustav. Ustav is an uncial style of writing that was characterised by having only one weight, characters constructed with only straight lines and no spaces between words. There was also no separa- tion into uppercase, lowercase and italics. 20

Fig.18 Kiev Missal, second half of the 10th century, one of the oldest samples of Gla- golitic writing

16. Yukechev, “Cyrillic Type Travel Book”, 148. 17. Wikipedia, “Great Moravia”. 18. Lopuhina, “Cyrillic: history and practice, lecture 1”. 14. Yukechev, “Cyrillic Type Travel Book”, 148. 19. Yukechev, “Cyrillic Type Travel Book”, 152. 16 15. Wikipedia, “Boyanski Gospel”. 17 20. Yukechev, “Cyrillic Type Travel Book”, 154. Fig.19 Ostromir Gospels, 1056-57. Letterforms of ustav are very close to Greek uncial script (Fig.17)

Gradually by the 15th century ustav transformed into poluustav (semi-uncial). This style of writing could be written faster, it already contained ligatures, diacritical characters and more varieties of letterforms. In the middle of the 16th century first Eastern Slavonic printing was founded, and since then poluustav was used as a main printing type and didn’t change much until Peter’s reforms. 21

Fig.21 Examples of skoropis. Since skoropis was developing naturally, it had many styles depending on the era and person’s style of . Here are the examples from the 15th, 16th and 17th century.

And one more important type style worth talking about is vyaz. It’s a decorative type that appeared in the 15th century and was in a way similar to style in Latin. Vyaz is characterised by interesting ligatures and different character sizes, which may vary for the sake of overall composition. It is still used for creat- ing a historic Slavic style. 23

Fig.20 “The Tale of Bygone Years” from Laurentian Chronicle, 1377 – example of poluustav

Ustav and poluustav were formal and complicated scripts for common people and were used mostly for the purposes of the church. This is why in the second half of 14th century skoropis (meaning “fast writing”) started to develop. It could be writ- ten much faster than ustav and poluustav and had a bigger variety of letterforms, which is why it was mostly used in more practical everyday needs. It was also the only kind of Cyrillic type that developed naturally, based on real handwriting and traces, just like Latin. In some modern italic letterforms the influence of skoro- pis can still be found. 22 Fig.22 Example of vyaz from the 17th century

21. Yukechev, “Cyrillic Type Travel Book”, 156. 18 22. Yukechev, “Cyrillic Type Travel Book”, 158. 19 23. Pankova, “1000 and 1 letter, lecture 1”. Historians assume that there were several parties involved in the development 4.2 Petri!e reform process of the new type. First the Emperor himself created the primary sketches. Then mil it ary gin eer and drafts man Kuh len bach refined and finalised the King’s sketches. After that the sketches were sent to Amsterdam for the production of Peter I, undoubtedly one of the most influential rulers of Russian Empire, who punches and matrices, and to the crafts men of the Moscow Print ing Yard for the reigned 1682–1725, had a dream to “cut a door to Europe”. 24 He was greatly par al lel man ufac ture of the new let terforms. The process started in 1706 and inspired by and the Enlightenment, and implemented a set of ended in 1710 with many rounds of corrections from Peter. The state of war, the reforms that led to cultural, political and scientific revolutions. Type was one lack of staff in the area of type design in RussianEmpire, the absence of any oppo- of them. sition to the Emperor’s decisions and general haste in the matter had their : the new type was a hybrid of Cyrillic and Latin , designed in a very amateur In the area of script Peter was inspired by Louis XIV of France, who was also carry- and eclectic way. ing out type reforms. The Sun King organised a special Roy al Com mis sion for the stand ardisa tion of craft that included working with typography. As a result, a spe- As a result of reforms, the quantity of characters was cut down from 45 to 38. cial typeface called “Ro main du Roi” was developed by the engin eer Jacques Jau- Some old Greek and ustav characters were dropped. European minuscule num- geon and the punch cut ter Philippe Grand jean de Fouchy. The first book that was bers and marks were introduced, and the use of capital letters was printed with this typeface was found in the library of Peter, and might have served systematised. Hyphenation of the long Russian words was also an important new as inspiration. But while for King Louis this affair was just a development of a new addition. Ultimately these changes made the books of Petrine epoch look a lot typeface, that was simply a variation of a serif type and not so different from the more like European ones. The new type received a name Civil type, since in was previous ones, Peter had an idea of reforming the whole script. mostly used for the production of public literature, while poluustav was left exclu- sively for the needs of church. Since then the “latinised” form of Cyrillic became traditional for many Slavic countries, and went through essentially the same stages of evolution as Latin. 25

Interesting fact: designing italic was not a part of the Civil type. It appeared in Cyrillic after Peter’s reforms, only in the 1730s. However it was not inspired by handwritten script, like in Latin, but by the engraved headlines on book titles, maps and other printed materials from Western countries. Step by step only in the late 18th – early 19th century Cyrillic italics finally started to resemble Latin, which was most probably stimulated by the mass export of Didot types from France. As Cyrillic roman and italic characters developed separately, there is a big differ- ence in lower-case letterforms: italic lower-case is graphically closer to Latin, while roman lower-case letters are mostly just a smaller copy of upper-case, based on the Emperor’s decision. 26

Fig.23 Specimen of Romain du Roi Fig.24 Specimen of Civil type, 1710 typeface, 1692

There was no pre-existing natural script basis for the development of a new type. But Peter was so obsessed with the idea of making Russia a European country, that no one had the power or will to resist the King's desire to reform the type. Thus the reform ended up being artificial and forced.

25. Yefimov, “Civil Type and Kis Cyrillic”. 20 24. Wikipedia, “Cut a door to Europe”. 21 26. Yefimov, “Kis Cyrillic”. azines and agitation. Both styles became a graphic of the epoch. Due to 4.3 Soviet period the lack of fonts, Soviet also experienced a huge development and this particular style of writing also still signifies the era.29

During the type reform of 1917–1918 that followed the October Revolution, even more changes were made to Cyrillic script . In essence some of the historical char- acters were removed from the alphabet.

Soviet government very quickly took over the type and printing industry and kept a monopoly over it until the end of USSR. During this period over a thousand dec- orative typefaces from previous epochs were destroyed because of ideological reasons. While Latin was successfully and rapidly developing, this evolution didn’t affect the Soviet Union much. Although there was a revival of design and in 1920s in the period of Constructivism and avant-garde, it did not lead to a big development in typefaces. 27

Fig.26 Example of Chekhonin’s type. A fragment from the cover of Elizaveta Polonskaya’s The most significant representatives of type designin the Constructivism era were book, 1924 so-called type and Chekhonin’s type. Stick type originated in Russian art and technical school Vkhutemas, which was a bulwark of modernism in those times. In 1930 a standard on type sorts was issued, it distinguished which varieties of It was an extremely simplified modular typeface, which received a massive distri- types were allowed to be used and produced by soviet type foundries. It only bution in the USSR through propaganda and commercial printing. 28 included 31 typefaces. Ironically, out of all these typefaces, the most commonly used one was called “Lateinisch”, which was used in 70% of printed books. 30 In 1920-30s the Soviet government even carried out a policy of latinisation of Rus- sian and other alphabets of Soviet republics. Their goal was to actually “get rid of the outdated Civil type”. However this process caused so many difficulties, misin- terpretations and was so costly, that the government had to forgo these attempts. 31

Fig.25 Example of “stick” type. A fragment from the cover of Sergey Tretyakov’s book, 1924

The so called “Chekhonin’s type” was the opposite, very dynamic, over-decora- tive, often illustrative type, designed by artist Sergei Chekhonin. He was working for the glory of the Soviet party, and his type could be found in many books, mag- Fig.27 Sample of Lateinisch medium condensed

29. Dombrovskiy, “Through darkness and chaos”. 27. Yukechev, “Cyrillic Type Travel Book”, 162. 30. Golovchenko, “A history of one standard”. 22 28. Krychevsky, “Stick type”. 23 31. Zhyrnov, “About latinization of Russian alphabet”. Type Design Department of the Research Institute of Printing Machinery (Polygraphmash) was the only government-owned organisation that controlled the type industry. In 1989, close to the collapse of USSR, the first private type ori- y hy ented company in years was established in Moscow. It is known today as ParaType T pograp foundry. At that time they had a license agreement with the Soviet Research Institute for manufacturing and distribution of their archived typefaces. 32 5.1 !eral guideli! In Europe most designers know that typographic traditions and inspiration stem from calligraphy and hand-written script – these are logical stages of development of Latin type design. However, due to an unfortunate chain of events, Cyrillic type As mentioned, lowercase and uppercase letters have different origins. Uppercase, was not given this chance in both Petrin and Soviet times. This is why in Cyrillic originated from Roman Capitalis Monumentalis inscriptions, have more straight there is no connection between written and printing type. Reproducing printing lines and verticals and are very stable. Lowercase letters that come from New characters with a nib leads to a failure. Roman are more dynamic, since they are based on the writing movement directed from left to right. 34 That’s why in Latin upper- and lowercase characters In the 18th century without having a humanist base Cyrillic type designers started mostly look different. right away with Dutch serifs. And in 20th century the calligraphy step was missed again and designers once again tried to create dynamic sans-serifs and calli- In Russian Cyrillic, due to its development process, 26 out of 33 lowercase letters graphic serifs. In many cases, this process is doomed to eternal copying of trendy are just a smaller copy of capitals, which may look unnatural. Consequently, when Latin tricks. 33 However, new post-soviet generation of type and graphic designers formed in words and sentences, lowercase letters create a so called “middle are already searching for new approaches, digging for inspiration and influences shelf”, that cuts the text line in half. 35 Many Cyrillic lowercase characters have hor- in their own background and history, which leads to new and surprising solutions izontal bars, which is also not a common feature in Latin. There are also very few in type and typography. ascenders and , which dramatically influences the overall look of the text, especially when compared to Latin. Due to these features there is a common stereotype that Cyrillic characters look like a fence.

The life of a designer is a life of fight against the ugliness. Жизнь дизайнера есть жизнь борьбы с уродством.

Fig.28 Comparison of the outlines of English and Russian sentences shows that the lack of ascenders in Cyrillic letters creates the so called “middle shelf” that cuts the text line in half, and visually increases the white between the lines

32. MyFonts, “ParaType”. 34. Wikipedia, “”. 24 33. Matsuev, “Russian Script: tradition and experiment”. 25 35. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 34. However this comparative analysis called “Layering of type” shows that the ste- When working with Cyrillic, especially in combination with Latin in a single layout, reotype is false. The most important difference in comparison with Latin is that it’s important to remember the following aspects: a single Cyrillic character often contains much more information, including the quantity of strokes and their direction. 36 Since Cyrillic characters almost don’t have ascenders and descenders, the inter- linear space becomes much wider and have more contrast. In order

Russian English to make Cyrillic and Latin text copies look balanced, the needs to be opti- cally adjusted. Vertical 1. elements The lack of ascenders and descenders also makes Cyrillic characters look visually smaller than Latin. To balance the text designer will have to adjust text size by 2. 0,5-1% depending on the typeface. Cyrillic characters are much wider than Latin. Thus designer has to be prepared that Cyrillic text with the same amount of characters and spaces will take 15-20% 3. more space. Ascenders and descenders Cyrillic characters have much less rounded elements, which influences the 4. rhythm and colour of text page. Small tracking adjustments might be required. 37

Slavic languages contain many single-letter prepositions and conjunctions like а, в, и, к, о, с, у, while in English there is only the article a. It’s best not to leave them hanging at the end of the text line, or it will create holes.

- Round Russian and any other Cyrillic-based languages have their own rules of elements ation. To find out the hyphenation of a particular word, it might help to google “[your word] перенос” – the result will be multiple websites that will correctly break the word into syllables. Like in Latin text-setting designers should avoid using more then 4-5 in the standard text block and finishing the page with a hyphenated word.

It is not common in Cyrillic to use ligatures. 38 There are more and more cases of modern type designers trying to develop and implement this feature in new type- Diagonal faces, so perhaps in the future it will be possible to work with them. But at the elements moment it is a rare case.

Amongst other peculiarities of working with Cyrillic, one can highlight the use character № instead of #, for indicating centuries and - instead of en-dash. 39

Fig.29 Comparative analysis presented by Russian type designer Ilya Ruderman in 2005 during his MA Type and Media studies at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague

37. Yukechev, “Cyrillic Type Travel Book”, 168. 38. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 277. 26 36. Yukechev, “Interview with Ilya Ruderman”. 27 39. Wittner, “Bi-Scriptual”, 72. into Cyrillic. In Russian alphabet there are already several characters that have the same letterforms: A B E H M O P T a c e o p x y. Some others require minimum Letters transformation, like B – Б Ъ Ы Ь, F – Г, K – К. 40 However, the bar in letter A cannot be dropped for stylistic reasons, since it will 6.1 Ge!eral i!formatio! be read as letter Л. It is also important to remember, that lowercase Cyrillic м is a copy of the uppercase. The use of the rounded Latin lowercase m should be avoided, since it represents Russian calligraphic lowercase т. 41 Despite some obvious differences, Cyrillic script (together with Greek) still has the most graphically similar letterforms to Latin. No other script in the world is so close. For the rest of the characters it is important type designers analyse the main char- acteristics of the Latin , such as characters’ height, the length of ascenders and descenders, shapes of serifs and ovals, angles of the axes, and apply them to the construction of additional Cyrillic letters. 42

Some small typographic differences are also important to mention. Usually in Latin typefaces, decorative elements such as serifs and drop terminals are used according to their origin. Serifs come from Roman Monumentalis, thus used for upper-case letters. Drop elements were borrowed from calligraphic writing, which is why they are found in lowercase letters. This rule is applied in Cyrillic too, but it gets broken in several cases, like Ж З К Э д з щ, where letters may contain both elements. 43

Some characters in Cyrillic alphabet have a very strong reverse dynamic, like Я Ч З Э, which violates the natural flow of the text from left to right. In Latin charac- ters d, j or have also turned their back against the text direction, however there will not be any problems writing them with hand. Letters Я and Э were artificially added to the alphabet in the 18th century as print characters and are uncom- fortable and unnatural to write.

The following chapters of the book will in detail each Cyrillic character and will help the reader to learn to identify the good quality Cyrillic fonts for future design projects. As a suggestion, using a set of letters БДабвджклмфя will help in the process of picking Cyrillic fonts for the project. 44 They will provide the first idea about the typeface, since these are characters that require the most atten- Fig.30 Venn diagram showing uppercase glyphs that share letterforms in Greek, Latin and tion and knowledge from type designers. Cyrillic

In cases when an already existing Latin typeface needs an additional Cyrillic fam- ily, both systems have so many common features that type designers can simply apply the method of “cyrillisation”, whereby a part of Latin glyphs are tailored

40. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 65. 41. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 87. 42. Yefimov, “How the font is made”. 43. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 34. 44. Korolkova, “Relatively easy method to 28 29 identify the quality of Cyrillic in a font”. 6.2 Peculiarities of Cyrillic characters Ббб Ббб Ббб БГ B as in "bad" The angle of the serif may vary depending on the style of typeface. In serif type- faces it’s often tilted to the outside. In slab serifs it is straight vertical. If the serif Cyrillic got letter Б thanks to the evolution of . In Ancient Greek is tilted to the inside it might be a reference to ustav. 45 the sound used to be represented as B (beta), but in Greek language became softer and nowadays this letter is pronounced as V (vita). However in Slavic languages this sound is very important, which is why Cyrill and Methodius had to come up with a new character for it.

Graphically it is very close to letter B and does not have many variations. The only complexity of this letter is the connection of the upper part of the bowl with a stem. In sans serif typefaces the connection is usually identical at the top and at the bottom. In serif typefaces, the upper part of the bowl is often bent a little bit to the Lower-case б is one of the very few “correct” lower-case letters, since it’s not a outside. copy of upper case. It is also one of the most prominent Cyrillic characters. The first confusion a foreigner experiences when it comes to this letter, is that lower- case б looks a lot like the number 6. There are, however, some important differ- ences. First of all, letter б is written in three strokes and has a double-bent tail that БВ strives upwards, while number 6 is written in two strokes and its top closes down. 46 The arm of Б has to be shorter than the bowl, otherwise the letter will “fall” visu- ally to the right. There are no exact rules about this, but usually the arm of Б is a 6 little bit wider than that of letter Г. б

45. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 99. 30 31 46. Hakala, “Notes on the Design of DTL Valiance Cyrillic”, 18. When it comes to small details, in the letter б the most horizontal place in the tale should be the thickest, and usually it becomes narrow at the end. The bowl of the б is usually lower than the bowls of other letters, to allow more space between the bowl and tail. Usually it goes up to the x-height, and in some cases even lower. The bowl of Cyrillic lowercase б tends to look like the one in Latin low- ercase b, but with less bending to the right. The width of б is usually the same as o. L Often in the case ofГ F, getting rid of the middle arm will grant a perfect Cyrillic Г. However, in some typefaces the leg of Г might need to be shortened, otherwise it will not be balanced like F and will “fall” visually to the right. Due to much white oб b space inside, letter Г also needs more than F and L. 48 In italic there is also an alternative version б with a tail directed to the right. It has probably evolved in an attempt to adapt to European graphics. This version is much easier to write with the hand compared to the typographic one, and it is still used in Cyrillic hand-written texts. 47 ГF Lowercase г is a copy of uppercase. Nevertheless in italic style a calligraphic lowercase г can sometimes be meet. Although it looks like a mirrored Latin s at first sight, it has a totally different stroke. Due to the movement of the nib, s has a Гг Гг Гг thick stroke in the middle, while г has the thickest curves on the top and bottom. G as in "good" Trying to create it by mirroring s breaks the rules of calligraphy and makes the let- ter less legible. 49 Г is structurally the simplest letter of Cyrillic. Its letterform is very close to Latin L or F, and with some additional adjustments both these letters can be easily trans- formed into Cyrillic Г. The main difference with L is that in Latin type bottom ser- ifs are usually heavier than upper ones, thus rotation and mirroring will not work properly – serif will need some extra attention. г s

48. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 67. 32 47. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 103. 33 49. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 121. Latin D also might look pretty natural in the Cyrillic word. Probably because hand- Дд Дд Ддд written calligraphic D in Latin and Cyrillic are the same. D as in "do"

Д has two basic forms – trapezium and triangle. Originally it was a copy of Greek Δ () and that is how it was written in ustav in the 11th century. Over time Greek letter got rid of its little serifs at the bottom, while in Cyrillic they got even longer. These days triangular Д is mostly only used in old-style serifs and simpli- fied technical sans-serifs, since it looks like letter A and disturbs legibility. The modern trapezium Д developed from the peculiar Petrine Д in Civil type that had Д one diagonal and one straight stem. D Lowercase italic д also has two alternative letterforms: like reversed б (more com- mon for print type) and like Latin g (typical for hand-writing). The letterform of Д has not been finalised yet after 300 years and is still in development.51

Жж Жж Жж ДД ZH as in "pleasure" Letter Д is not an easy character to design, thus in order to identify a well-designed The design of letter Ж is strongly connected to the construction of letter K. Tech- Cyrillic font, the following details need attention. The (white space inside nically letter Ж consists of two mirrored with some adjustments, and in most of the letter) should be carefully balanced. The left curved stroke should be a little typefaces they come in the same style. That is a reason why Cyrillic type families bit tilted to the right, not straight – this is a sign of a contemporary typeface. It also rarely have a K with double junction, because when mirrored and put together, the should not connect to the corner of the – having enough space for the middle part appears saggy and unbalanced. The whole construction should also shoulders is important. Descenders should not be too short, but of course shorter be narrowed, otherwise Ж will be too wide. 52 than in letter p. 50 Д КК

51. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 131. 34 50. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 125. 35 52. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 67. KKK

As mentioned before, letter Ж breaks the classical rules of decorating in type. The upper legs of the characters can end with both serifs and drop elements, which is more typical for Soviet typefaces. 53 ζЗZ The biggest challenge with letter З is that it looks a lot like number 3, therefore it is easy for a foreigner to confuse them. These two characters actually have very important differences between them.

First of all, numbers are usually more narrow than letters. Looking at decorative elements also helps to distinguish one from the other. Numbers are not upper- case characters, but high lowercase, thus they comply with the different type Ж Ж design . If both characters have serifs, they will be designed differently.55 Lowercase ж is a copy of the uppercase. However the design of an italic lower- case ж is based not on the style of к but c, which is more correct from a calli- graphic perspective. This allows the letter to have alternative connection styles, like a simple horizontal line or zig-zag, which might look very different from the roman version. 54 3 In some serif typefacesЗ letter З can have a serif on top and a drop at the bottom Зз Зз Ззз (another rule breaker), in which case number 3 will only have one of these ele- Z as in "zoo" ments. In other typefaces the number 3 can have a flat top, which differentiates it from the letter. Having old style hanging numeral in the font also helps. 56 Both Latin Z and Cyrillic З originate from the same Greek character ζ (zeta). In old Cyrillic, before the Petrine reform, there were two letters that signified the sound “z” – S and З. With his strong will to move towards Europe, Peter the Great left let- ter S in the Civil type but over time З won its way back into the alphabet.

53. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 149. 55. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 66. 36 54. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 155. 37 56. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 159. While roman lowercase и is a copy of uppercase, the lowercase italic и is once Ии Ии Ии again designed differently and is almost always a copy of Latin u. I as in "police"

И is not a reflection of N. These two letters have different origins, which informs the way they are designed. И origins from Greek letter H (). Still in ustav and poluustav the bar was practically horizontal, sometimes even completely horizon- tal, and only over time, it did transform into a diagonal. 57 Йй Йй Йй The main difference between Cyrillic И and Latin N si the distribution of thickness. Y as in "toy" The stems of И are bearing elements, thus they are thicker. This is the result of writing with a straight nib that originates from ustav. The diagonal is a connecting While the main part of letter Й has the same construction as the previously dis- line, thus it is thinner. In Latin N the stems play the role of connecting elements, as cussed letter И, there is an additional diacritical symbol on top – , which is a result of a nib angled at 30 and 60 degrees. The diagonal of N is a main stroke. 58 also present in Latin. Although, Cyrillic breve has a different shape.

In Latin a breve is usually narrow on the ends and has its thickest part in the mid- dle. Cyrillic breve, on the contrary, has thick parts on the ends (in serif typefaces main stroke it’s drops) and the minimum weight in the middle. Italic breve might be a little dif- ferent in some typefaces. It might have a drop only on the left, which makes it more dynamic. “We are used to ‘Й’ with Mickey Mouse ears,” writes type designer Yuri connecting line Gordon in his book “Letters from A to Ja”.

Unlike the Иletter N, in serif typefaces И usuallyN has serifs on all four ends of the stems. It makes the character bulky, but stable. In this case the connecting diag- onal starts a little above the lower serif and ends a little bit under the upper one. In sans-serif typefaces the diagonal often connects the ends of both stems. If it starts higher, it is usually a reference to the old-style or modernist traditions. 59

Generally diacriticsЙ are common for Latin languagesĬ, which is why in typefaces they are often big and positioned pretty far from the characters. In Russian Cyril- lic there are only two letters with diacritics – Ё and Й. In order to not stand out too much, their diacritics often tend to “hide” by being very close to the character, in И the case of Й they are sometimes even pushed inside a little. 60

57. Hakala, “Notes on the Design of DTL Valiance Cyrillic”, 21. 58. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 66. 38 59. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 173. 39 60. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 178. Кк Кк Кк л Лл Ллл K as in "kept" L as in "line"

In many typefaces Cyrillic and Latin K can be different. This is not due the sub- Just like letter Д, letter is still in development for a perfect balanced letterform. stantial difference between these two letters – on the contrary, they represent the In the 18th century Л and Д still had a triangular shape, but by the end of the 19th same sound and have the same letterform in both languages – but due to the con- century they became almost rectangular. 63 nection between K and Ж. If in the font certain elements like drops, serifs or type of connection make letter Ж work, then K ideally includes the same elements. In modern typefaces it is common to tilt the left stoke a little to the right. However in 1980s there was a rule to design it at a right angle. It is not a mistake, but it is Generally, having a serif on the bottom stroke is more typical of Latin K, and hav- not a contemporary solution either. Some typefaces might have an with a drop ing a bended tail is more common to Cyrillic. Also having an extreme double junc- element on the end of the left stroke, which is once again, breaking the rules of tion in Cyrillic K is unlikely, or it has to be treated by a type designer with care. 61 calligraphy. This is however just a solution to logically finish a weak, thin element. 64 KКK Cyrillic lowercase к is a copy of an uppercase and does not have a typical Latin While lowercase roman л is anotherЛ copy of the uppercase, in some cases lower- . Italic lowercase к and ж do not have to be related in construction, unlike case italic л can have its top part rounded or spiky, which is a hand-written form. roman ones. 62 The most important thing to remember is that Cyrillic , especially its rectangu- lar version, is not an upside-down Latin V. Left stroke of an tends to bend at the end, while V’s right stroke has a very clear straight serif. 65 к ж ЛV 63. Yefimov, “Kis Cyrillic”. 61. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 185. 64. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 195. 40 62. Hakala, “Notes on the Design of DTL Valiance Cyrillic”, 22. 41 65. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 66. п Пп Пп P as in "pet"

Another simply constructed Cyrillic letter. It originates from the Greek letter Ππ ( ) . Probably the most important detail worth noting about this letter is that in serif typeface it must have all six serifs, at the bottom of stems and on both sides of the top part, as without them letter might be falsely perceived as letter . 66 УY Although at first sight looks like X without a leg, it is not possible to achieve a successful character with such manipulation. Cyrillic has a different inclination angle, and taking the leg from X will result in a character with no stability. 68

While romanП lowercase п is a copy of uppercase,Л the typical italic lowercase п is a copy of Latin n. X Even though У is an uppercase letter, it should not end with a serif, but with a ball у Уу Уу terminal or bend at the end. Lowercase y is identical to Latin. U as in "tool"

Cyrillic and Latin Y originate from the same Greek character Υυ (). Cyrillic letter comes in two variations: with straight and rounded connections. Structur- ally, the straight stroke version is basically Latin V with a tail that continues down and to the left. The version with the rounded element is more rare and typical of typefaces with rectangular letterforms. 67 Фф Фф Фф F as in "face"

Ф is a pure Greek letter and one of a kind. It does not fit into either the Latin, or Cyrillic matrix, and all its Greek relatives, which used to be included in Cyrillic У У alphabet are long gone.

66. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 231. 42 67. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 266. 43 68. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 66. It is also quite a complex character in terms of form, and creating it in a wrong way greatly impacts the quality of the typeface. The following are the details that Цц Цц Цц require the most attention: firstly, the stem often ascends a little bit over the cap- TS as in "tsar" height. This helps to keep the bowl not too squeezed. In some cases the stem also descends. Secondly, the distance between the bowls and serifs is usually smaller Ц starts a set of letters that are exclusively Cyrillic and don’t have either Latin or on the top and bigger at the bottom for the visual balance of the letter. 69 Greek origins, due to the lack of sibilants ( characterized by a hissing sound like s or sh) in Greek language. Cyril and Methodius had to come up with their own letterforms for these sounds. The origin of the letter is not clear, but it ) from . 71) צ has a strong resemblance with the letter

P Lowercase ф hasФ the longest stem of all Latin and Cyrillic characters. As Russian type designer Yuri Gordon notes: “No one knows for sure, where it should start”. Sometimes it goes all the way from the top ascender line to the bottom of descen- ЦП der. In other cases, it starts a bit lower than b and ends at the same spot as p. Structurally the main part of Ц is an upside-down letter . Sometimes it can be narrowed a little bit for better balance, but that is not necessary. A tail can have three different shapes: regular serif; tilda stroke, sometimes with a drop on the end, typical for old style archaic serif typeface; s-shaped tail – calligraphic or pseudo- calligraphic style. Probably, the roots of this diversity come from the sketches of Peter the Great, where letter Ц had five different tails in differenttype sizes. 72 pф b Ц Earlier it was common to create the round part of Ф with two o’s. Today it is more common practice to create it out of the halves of an o. This helps to identify the modernity of the typeface. 70 Lowercase roman ц is a copy of uppercase, but italic ц is Latin u with tail.

69. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 269. 71. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 296. 44 70. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 283. 45 72. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 297. Чч Чч Чч Шш Шш Шш CH as in "check" SH as in "sharp"

Back in ustav letter Ч used to look like Y, but with time the symmetry was lost and the letter became reversely dynamic. Щщ Щщ Щщ SHCH as in "fresh cheese" For a foreigner letter Ч might look like H without a leg. However, these two letters are not connected. The form of letter Ч was inspired by chalice, thus it has a unique, asymmetrical arch, which may vary in design and is not used in any other Cyrillic Another letters inspired by the Hebrew alphabet due to the lack of sibilants in -). 76 Щ is the widest charac) ש characters. It is also not an upside-down h. The arch of Ч doesn’t sag that much. 73 Greek language, most probably by the letter ter of the Russian alphabet. Visually, this character is a mixture of letters Ш and Ц, therefore in any typeface it has the same style of tail as Ц. 77

Sometimes Ч withЧ a straight horizontal strokeh might come across. This was mostly typical for Constructivist typefaces and makes the letter very rough and bulky. Letter Ч resembles number 4 a little bit, however 4 has a slanted left stem and a ШЦ closed contour. Sometimes this play on shapes is used in design. 74 Щ Usually both roman and italic lowercase ч look4 like a copy of uppercase. There is Italic lowercase ш looks much like an upside-down Latin m at first glance,how - an alternative versionЧ that resembles calligraphic Latin lowercase r. Today it is ever this impression is false. Even if the arches are identical, the upper and lower rare, since this version of a letter is less legible in Russian and other Cyrillic texts. 75 terminals are usually different. By construction this letter is closer to Latin u. 78

73. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 66. 76. Timatkov, “Letters of the day: ”. 74. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 305. 77. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 313. 46 75. Hakala, “Notes on the Design of DTL Valiance Cyrillic”, 27. 47 78. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 317. down might be the first impulse, it is not a good idea. While this might work in some sans serif fonts, in serif fonts the between the bowl and the stem ш m is usually different in P and Ь, as a result of the nib movement.79 These are the characters that contribute most of all to the perception of Cyrillic text as a fence. Ш and Щ are also the heroes of many internet memes about “crazy” Russian hand-written cursive, where unfortunately they tend only to hinder the reading of the text. bЬВ Ъъ Ъъ Ъъ hard sign Ыы Ыы Ыы IH as in "ill" Ьь Ьь Ьь soft sign ЬР The following letters are quite special in the , since the sounds In addition, the tail of ъ should equal the half of т, and the distance between two they represent are usually the hardest for foreigners to pronounce. The official halves of ы should be smaller than between letters ь and i, otherwise it does not names of these letters are , , and front yer. While letter Ы is used in many look like a single character. 80 Russian words, Ъ and Ь are also called hard and soft signs as they influence the letter standing before them, rather than act like a proper sound.

Although there are both upper- and lower-case options, there are almost no words in Russian language that start with these characters. There have also been sev- eral attempts to get rid of the hard sign Ъ throughout the history of the Russian language, and debate around it still continues. ы ьі There are a few details in these characters worth paying attention too. Generally their letterforms are close to the В and в. Although turning the letter P upside

79. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 67. 48 49 80. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 325. Ээ Ээ Ээ Юю Юю Юю E as in "met" YU as in "use"

Э is one of the newest letters in Russian alphabet, and therefore does not have However peculiar this letter looks, historically Ю is essentially a of IO. any prototypes in ustav and poluustav. It was introduced into the alphabet with the At first glance Ю might look like H and O put together. However in Юthe crossbar reforms of Peter the Great. As for the letterform there are also no counterparts for must be much shorter and O much more narrow, otherwise the character is too wide. 83 this letter in Latin. The closest one is the letter C, however these two characters have a different dynamic due to the way they are written by hand. Э has symmetri- cal upper and lower halves, while C leans to the bottom left. 81 HO

As for the bar, it may come Эin three options, dependingС on the style of the type- face: straight horizontal stroke, horizontal stroke with serif, and tilda. Besides, the bar in Э, it is usually longer than in E. 82

Ю 84 ЭЕ In italic style a bar in ю has more freedom. It can be a diagonal or zigzag. Э Э

81. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 67. 83. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 67. 50 82. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 331. 51 84. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 345. Яя Яя Яя 6.3 Co!clusio! YA as in "yard"

Я is also a relatively new character, that came to the alphabet thanks to Peter the Active global exchange of information, which humans experience today, is making Great. For foreigners it often looks like a mirrored Latin R. But remembering that a great impact on all professional practices that deal with communication. Mod- the design of each character follows the dynamic of hand-writing – this is where ern world requires the knowledge and serious analysis of cultural characteristics all the differences in these two letters come from. Я follows a reversed dynamic, in order to promote a product or convey a message. In the Western world in par- that’s why its terminal looks visually uncomfortable. Unlike R, letter Я goes against ticular designers experience the growing interest towards multilingual design as the natural direction of writing, its terminal sticks out in the opposite direction. 85 a mean of intercultural communication. Also following calligraphic rules, the leg of Я should be thin. It is an example of the absence of hand-written base in the alphabet created by the Russian Emperor. For decades has been a dominant type system and a great influence in the world of graphic design, due to its rich history and progressive develop- ment. It has been setting an example to other script systems in terms of the evo- lution of printing type. However, while foreign designers obtain the knowledge about both their native and Latin type by default, in the Western world getting a chance to learn foreign scripts is still a rare opportunity.

The fear of the unknown can be a great obstacle on the way of working with other scripts. Different origins and forms of script, inability to read the characters gen- erate insecurity among designers. But however complex it looks, it is important to Fig.31 Written with a nib, letter Я has a thin sloppy remember that script is a system. And like any system it can be explored, analysed tail, that type designers have to alter to look like letter R, in order to create a harmonious font and explained. Human writing habits still have a lot in common regardless of the country. Different script systems have also been influencing each other for cen- turies. And development of script into the digital printing type has also created a The shape of the leg is usually what differs Я fromR. Letter R usually has a straight lot of limitations, that in this case are beneficial for designers in asense of making leg, while Я has a bent one. However, the simpler the typeface, the more it longs the type easier to work with. Realising these basic settings is a good start for any to be straightened. In some modern geometrically simplified typefaces Я and R multi-scriptual project. look the same. 86 Nevertheless, it is also important to understand that each script has its own spe- cial features, that are essential to know in order to create a legible design. How- ever close by the origin, it would still be a mistake to work with any type according to Latin rules. Each script requires different typographic settings, such as lead- ing, tracking, size of the characters etc. It is also important to be able to identify the good quality typefaces, which needs a little bit of type design expertise. Apart from that, it is always a good idea to consults the native speaker or user of the script.

In perspective, knowledge of foreign script systems might enrich designer’s pro- Я fessional experience, result in new, surprising solutions and increase the variety ЯR and quantity of clientele and target audience. Because of diverse perspectives

85. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 40. 52 86. Gordon, “Letters from A to Ja”, 349. 53 and visions, collaboration between designers-users of different scripts can also result in experimentation and new approaches towards the future development of type and design. All in all, studying other scripts can also lead to a better under- standing and respect towards other cultures. Project

The project part of the thesis is a book titled “Cyrillize it!”. It is created in the form of a guide, which designers can always come back to in case they need any guid- ance with a project that contains Cyrillic script.

The book includes direct recommendations on Cyrillic typography and characters, English interpretation of Cyrillic letters, great examples of graphic design proj- ects with Cyrillic, quotes and interviews with professionals. The overall choice of colours, typefaces and the tone of the material are informal and playful, in order to engage the reader in such a complicated topic.

54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 Fedorova, Anastasiia. “Word up: How Cyrillic Typography Became the Lingua Franca for Underground Fashion.” The Calvert Journal, June 6, 2014. https://www. hy calvertjournal.com/articles/show/2640/cyrillic-typography-lingua-franca-under- Bibliograp ground-fashion-russian.

8.1 Books Golovchenko, Konstantin. “История дного тандарта.” Type Journal, Septem- ber 10, 2014. https://typejournal.ru/articles/OST-1337.

Chekunova, Antonina. Русское Кириллическое Письмо -XVIII Вв. Moscow: Korolkova, Aleksandra. “тносительно ёгкий пособ пределить Качество RGGU, 2010. Кириллицы в Шрифте.” LiveJournal, February 22, 2014. https://leksandra.live- journal.com/114663.html. Gordon, Jurij. Книга про буквы от А до Я. Moscow: Izdat. Studii Artemija Lebe- deva, 2006. Krychevsky, Vladimir. “алочный Шрифт.” Энциклопедия русского авангарда. Accessed July 22, 2020. http://rusavangard.ru/online/history/palochnyy-shrift/. Gabbasov, Rustam and Eugene Yukechev. Cyrillic Type Travel Book Commented, Moscow: Schrift Publishers. 2019 Lopukhina, Victoria. “Кириллица, История и рактика.Lecture 1.” Bang Bang Education. Accessed July 22, 2020. https://bangbangeducation.ru/course/kirilli- Hakala, Hanna. Notes on the Design of DTL Valiance Cyrillic. Hertogenbosch: ca-istoriya-i-praktika. Dutch Type Library, 2013. Matsuev, Oleg. “усское исьмо: радиция и Эксперимент.” Type Journal, Krichevskiy, Vladimir and Aleksey Dombrovskiy. Два Шрифта Одной Революции. August 21, 2018. https://typejournal.ru/articles/cyrillic-calligraphy. Moscow: Masterskaia, 2014. Pankova, Olya. “1000 и 1 Буква. Lecture 1.” Bang Bang Education. Accessed July Wittner, Ben and Sascha Thoma. Bi-Scriptual: Typography and Graphic Design 22, 2020. https://bangbangeducation.ru/course/1000-i-1-bukva. with Multiple Script Systems. Sulgen: Niggli, 2019 “ParaType.” Myfonts. Accessed July 22, 2020. https://www.myfonts.com/foundry/ ParaType/.

Raspopina, Sasha. “Spelling It out: Why Cyrillic Slogan Streetwear Is the New 8.2 Websites Punk Uniform for Post-Soviet Teens.” The Calvert Journal, June 23, 2016. https:// www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/6278/cyrillic-slogan-streetwear-cloth- ing-rubchinskiy-vetements. Danilova, Anna. “Как тличить Хороший Шрифт т лохого?” Дизайн-бюро Артёма Горбунова, September 9, 2017. https://bureau.ru/bb/soviet/20170909. Ruderman, Ilya. “Font Scandal at FIFA World Cup.” type.today, July 10, 2018. https://type.today/en/journal/fifa_typography. Dombrovskiy, Aleksey. “квозь глу и Хаос.” Type Journal, October 29, 2014. https://typejournal.ru/articles/Sergey-Chekhonin-Two-Types-Of-One-Revolution. Semyonov, Ivan. “лохая и Хорошая Кириллица.” Habr. Habr, September 16, 2010. https://habr.com/en/post/104399. Fedorova, Anastasiia. “Post-Soviet Fashion: Identity, History and the Trend That Changed the Industry.” The Calvert Journal, February 23, 2018. https://www. Timatkov, Aleksey. “Буква Дня: Ша.” Arzamas. Arzamas, October 18, 2016. calvertjournal.com/features/show/9685/post-soviet-visions-fashion-aesthet- https://arzamas.academy/micro/letters/26. ics-gosha-demna-lotta-vetements.

62 63 “Unicode® 10.0.0.” Unicode 10.0.0. Accessed July 22, 2020. https://unicode.org/ versions/Unicode10.0.0/. 8.3 Tables & figures Wikipedia. “Cyrillic Script.” Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed July 22, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillic_script. Table 1. Created by the author. Russian alphabet and the approximate English phonetic equivalents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_alphabet. Wikipedia. “Great Moravia.” Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed July 22, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moravia. Figure 1. Created by the author. Variations of Cyrillic letters K and E in different languages. Digital font, . Wikipedia. “Roman Cursive.” Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed July 23, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_cursive. Figure 2. Yulia Yefimtchuk. Fashion campaign of Ukrainian designer Yulia Yefimtchuk. Digital photo. Accessed June 18, 2020. https://assets.vogue.com/pho- Wikipedia. “Russian Alphabet.” Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed July 23, 2020. tos/58914765736d5f2410e378fe/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/decoding-the-cyril- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_alphabet. lic-tshirt-02.jpg

Wikipedia. “Боянское Евангелие.” Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed July 22, Figure 3. Heron Preston. “Style” turtleneck by American designer Heron Preston. 2020. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Боянское_Евангелие Digital photo. Accessed June 19, 2020. https://d1qz9pzgo5wm5k.cloudfront.net/ api/file/YUaiWw4Q1mdFqwxUY9y6 Wikipedia. “В Европу рорубить кно.” Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed July 22, 2020. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/В_Европу_прорубить_окно. Figure 4. Gosha Rubchinskiy, Adidas. Collaboration of Russian designer Gosha Rubchinskiy with Adidas. Digital photo. Accessed June 19, 2020. https://second- Yefimov, Vladimir. “Civil Type and Kis Cyrillic.” Type Journal, September 3, 2013. friendstore.ru/uploads/productphoto/image/d8/5d/66/big_26c9e35bbf3a200f. https://typejournal.ru/en/articles/Civil-Type. jpg

Yefimov, Vladimir. “Kis Cyrillic.” Type Journal, January 24, 2014. https://typejournal. Figure 5. Sputnik1985. Socks by Russian brand Sputnik 1985. Digital photo. ru/en/articles/Kis-Cyrillic-Typeface. Accessed June 19, 2020. https://res.cloudinary.com/fictive-kin/image/upload/v1/ verygoods/prod/ef4c2443e02a01fb27d9cdf9d14ef455020b6b85 Yefimov, Vladimir. “Как Делают Шрифты.” ParaType, February 15, 1996. http://rus. paratype.ru/making-types. Figure 6. Created by the author. Joanna Sans Nova, Regular. Digital font.

Yukechev, Eugene. “Interview with Ilya Ruderman.” Type Journal, June 19, 2015. Figure 7. Created by the author. Gotham, Book. Digital font. https://typejournal.ru/en/articles/Ilya-Ruderman-Interview. Figure 8. Created by the author. Arial, Regular. Digital font. Zhyrnov, Evgeniy. “ атинизации усского Алфавита.” Kommersant, January 17, 2010. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1301421. Figure 9. Type.today. Latin and Cyrillic characters from the official FIFA 2018 “Dusha” typeface. Digital font. Accessed June 22, 2020. https://type.today/en/ journal/fifa_typography

Figure 10. H&M. Hoodie with ЦДИ ЦЙІЗD slogan. Digital photo. Accessed June 22, 2020. https://www2.hm.com/en_us/productpage.0566460003. html

64 65 Figure 11. Created by the author. “I don’t like you” t-shirt by Sputnik1985. Digital Figure 24. Yefimov. Civil type. Digital reproduction. Type Journal. Accessed photo. June 24, 2020. https://typejournal.ru/media/tmp/99be1c80-3fc6-11e3-a7f3- 14dae9b62a82.jpg Figure 12. Ira Ivanova. Poster for Ping Pong Club Moscow. Digital image. Accessed July 27, 2020. http://iraivanova.com/ppcm-pt1/ Figure 25. Sergey Tretyakov. Example of sticl type. Digital reproduction. Krichevs- kiy, 8 Figure 13. Bruno Ponceano. Visual identity & album cover for NoPorn music project. Digital image. Accessed July 27, 2020. https://www.behance.net/gal- Figure 26. Sergey Chekhonin. Cover of Elizaveta Polonskaya’s book. Digital repro- lery/79121699/NoPorn duction. Type Journal. Accessed June 26, 2020. https://typejournal.ru/media/ tmp/043758e6-5c07-11e4-80ff-14dae9b62a82.png Figure 14. groza.design. Poster for a master class “Land art sculpture”. Digital image. Accessed June 23, 2020. https://groza.design/public/projects/65/1407. Figure 27. Golovchenko. Leteinisch type specimen. Digital reproduction. Type jpg Journal. Accessed June 26, 2020. https://typejournal.ru/media/tmp/c800f526- 2bd7-11e4-8e68-14dae9b62a82.jpg Figure 15. Anna Kulachek. Poster for Strelka institute. Digital image. Accessed July 18, 2020. https://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/123083/11762596/_- Figure 28. Created by the author. Comparison of the outlines of English and Rus- 05_1600_c.png sian sentence. Digital font, Neue Haas Unica.

Figure 16. miguel anønimo. Booklet for traveling series “The Sofia Issue”. Digi- Figure 29. Ilya Ruderman. Comparative analysis "Layering of type". Digital image. tal images. Accessed July 27, 2020. https://www.behance.net/gallery/69870481/ Type Journal. Accessed July 4, 2020 https://typejournal.ru/articles/Ilya-Ruder- The-Sofia-Issue-Travelling-Series man-Interview

Figure 17. Wikipedia. Codex Tischendorfianus. Digital reproduction. Accessed Figure 30. Created by the author. Uppercase glyphs that share letterforms in July 27, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Tischendorfianus_IV#/media/ Greek, Latin and Cyrillic. Digital font, Neue Haas Unica. Wikipedia. Accessed July File:Codex_Tischendorfianus_IV_Mt_8,11-18.jpg 27, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram#/media/File:Venn_dia- gram_gr_la_ru.svg Figure 18. Wikipedia. Kiev Missal. Digital reproduction. Accessed June 23, 2020. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Kiev_Glagolitic_list_X.jpg Figure 31. Gordon, 350. Я and R written with nib. Digital reproduction.

Figure 19. Russian National Library. Ostromir Gospels. Digital reproduction. Accessed June 24, 2020. http://expositions.nlr.ru/ex_manus/Ostromir_Gospel/_ Data/Izo/B42EB88E-8BD8-44A1-9754-EF88B39E7CAC/4.jpg

Figure 20. Chekunova, 24. The Tale of Bygone Years. Digital reproduction.

Figure 21. Chekunova, 30. Examples of skoropis. Digital reproduction.

Figure 22. Chekunova, 65. Exampleof vyaz. Digital reproduction.

Figure 23. Wikipedia. Specimen of Romain du Roi typeface. Digital reproduction. Accessed June 24, 2020. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/dc/ff/10/dcff108820e- 17476ac548cdeadc82e29.png

66 67 that I feel a problem with education in graphic design. At least in the Western world we never think about it, there was no class, no program or no workshop, A n x which ever dealt with other script systems than Latin. I feel there are a lot of ppe di missed opportunities. I think it is only possible because Latin script systems are so dominant in the whole world.

9.1 Prelimi!ary Working with Cyrillic I would be very unsure about dealing with it at first,because there is always this tendency to look at Cyrillic and Greek from the perspective of Latin script. You always feel: “Ah, this is so similar to Latin! This is a letter that looks i!terviews exactly like N, and it’s just mirrored.” I feel like I know this, but actually there are a lot of differences in dealing with it. For example, I know that in Greek there are moments, when you feel you have the same letter in designing, but then you have to really take care about some small details. If I were to deal with Cyrillic now, What is your opinion about Cyrillic type from the graphic design perspective? I would have missed many things. I wouldn’t be able to do it without any help from Would you be interested to work with it? someone who’s fluent with this language or script system.

Nadeen, I think, graphically, for someone who doesn't speak the language, I wouldn't think Nevertheless, I feel very interested in working with Cyrillic. Obviously there is a lot Egypt they are letters. They look more like ancient symbols. I generally like how Cyrillic to learn there. It’s really sad that I haven’t been in contact with this script system looks. I would like to work with it, but also I always have this feeling that I might be yet. I have worked a little bit with and Japanese, but these are projects that doing something wrong, since I can’t read it. It’s also kind of confusing, because usually come up once or twice a year. And it’s always just one headline or one it has all these letters that look like Latin, but they are not pronounced the same. sentence, thus you are not really engaging with a script system at these occasions. But yeah, I would definitely love to work with Cyrillic in the future.

Elayne, As a graphic designer I think that Cyrillic is a very complex graphic system. Maybe Philippines I’m saying this because I am very unfamiliar with this language and writing system. Rares, I am originally Romanian, but I have lived my whole life in Portugal. Unfortunately, Also it’s very different from the ancient characters in my home country, which is Portugal I didn’t have any chance to study Russian or learn the Cyrillic script. Although, the Philippines. We have these very organic characters. For me, I see Cyrillic to be I was always very fascinated by it. My parents always bought a lot of stuff from very technical, direct, and strict. Somehow I feel like there is still a friendly tone Russian supermarkets and the labels were always in Cyrillic, and I always found attached to each character and letter. Because I’ seen a friend use it, I associate them very interesting. Sometimes I confused them with . it with colour red and freedom. I think Cyrillic is a very interesting script form. There are different forms of Cyrillic For now I don’t think I am comfortable using it, because I don’t even know where from around the world. It’s quite like the . You have Serbian Cyrillic, to begin. I don’t know what these characters mean. I don’t know how to read them. Russian Cyrillic, Bulgarian Cyrillic and they are so different, although they use the And, probably, in worst case, I am afraid to offend someone, who is more familiar same alphabet. with the language. For sure there is a deeper meaning or a history behind each character. As a graphic designer I think the characters are just wonderful. Their shape makes them much more interesting than Latin, because they seem to me like . Sometimes I think what would it be like if we tried to write a Latin word with Cyril- Paul, From my perspective of graphic designer, I have to say that I don’t feel that I know lic letters? I think that would have been very interesting. I definitely would love to Germany a lot about it. First of all, I never accounted it during education, which is something work with Cyrillic!

68 69 Sharmila, Unfortunately, I don’t have any experience with Cyrillic, so I don’t have an opinion quite different in Latin and Cyrillic. But when youare trying to please everyone, some Australia about it as such. I’ve only worked with the Latin/Roman alphabet (English, French compromises have to be found in both systems. Or if we add more scripts to the and German) so far. font – this will create a rich beautiful complex system, but with even more limita- tions. Yes, I’d be interested in working with it, should it be required for a particular project content-wise, and also because I’m interested in different languages and scripts in Besides, Cyrillic history wasn’t developing as smooth as Latin, which also makes general, both in terms of form and semantics. an impact on design process. But now we live in a time where the industry is blooming and everything develops very quickly, more and more new typefaces appear. That makes me happy.

What tendencies do you see happening in the world of Cyrillic type and graphic 9.2 I!terview design? What’s changing? Oh, tendencies can be a whole separate topic! But in general I’m noticing a “boom” in type design industry, because a lot of new type editors have appeared, and they with type desig! have become more affordable. Therefore more people tarteds designing typefaces. Not necessarily for big projects, but also for small tasks. For example, drawing Maria Doreuli , since it’s much more convenient to do directly in a type editor. When I started designing type about 10 years ago, we only had FontLab. Today we have RoboFont, Glyphs and many other editors. They come in a different Maria is a Russian type designer currently working in San Francisco. She received price range, some are even free. Everyone can choose what they prefer and not her education in Moscow Polytechnic University and Royal Academy of Art, The be stuck with one program. I think it’s great, because it creates competition and Hague. In 2013 she opened her own type design studio Contrast Foundry, which helps the industry to evolve. develops typeface for sale and works on custom projects for various clients. Maria is also one of the founders of educational platform “Type Design Workshop” and The development of type design area also stimulates the emergence of new Cyrillic type related blog “Cyrillicsly”. names. Before, everyone who was designing typefaces knew each other or at least heard of each other. Now there are so many people that it’s impossible to I would like to start with a somewhat provoking question. Russian type designer know everyone. So often I stumble upon a new studio or online type store and Yuri Gordon believes that Cyrillic script consists of uninteresting unattractive think: “Who are these people? I’ve never heard of them.” characters, and type designer can never create beautiful Cyrillic, Latin will be better by default. What do you think about this statement? Also new models of licensing and type distribution are appearing. For example, such platforms as Future Fonts, that allow new young designers to upload their Well, I strongly disagree with that. I don’t think that there are beautiful and ugly fresh unfinished projects. We didn’t have things like this before. scripts in general. My teacher Alexander Tarbeev says, that the term “beauty” has little relevance in type design, because it’s very subjective. I don’t think that Cyril- Cyrillic type design is a part of international community and we pretty much fol- lic script is in any way worse than others. Yes, there are some specificities that low the same tendencies. Probably the major difference between Latin and Cyril- should be considered when you design a font that includes both Latin and Cyrillic. lic type markets, is that we are still in need of some very basic things. Latin already Perhaps, it would have been even easier to work exclusively on Cyrillic or exclu- has an extensive base of fonts, in different stylesand weights, and customers can sively on Latin, since you have less characters and less design modules, that are choose whatever they want. Although the number of new Cyrillic typefaces is

70 71 growing, it’s still incomparable with Latin. And although the quality is also improv- more, because when designers never worked with Cyrillic before, they think that ing, I think, our major problem is that we develop Cyrillic type as an addition to because of the similarities in both scripts it will take them about a week to work something already existing. It’s important to do, yes, but at the same time we are on it. And when I start explaining them the specifics, they learn from their own lacking the projects on such a level, that would allow constant improvement and experience that it’s not that easy of a process. Thus they understand and appreci- updating of the font. This is the way most successful Latin fonts are developed. ate my work more. However, when they don’t have this experience and outsource Maybe things will change in 10 years. the development of Cyrillic to another designer, they will be surprised to learn how long it takes and how much money it costs. What would you wish things to be like in future? I’ve been consulting for 6 years now and I can definitely see the improvement in Current situation is the reason why I decided to open my own foundry and have studios’ attitude. Now they know approximately how long it might take and inform the library, that I can manage myself: control the updates, have an opportunity their clients. However, I still stumble upon the cases, when big companies design to design Latin and Cyrillic from scratch, instead of just adding one system to their identities and interfaces only taking into consideration Latin typography. another. This way the font ends up being more organic. And when they expand their market, they try to order additional script families from the . They don’t understand that it will take years to design them! As I remember, about ten years ago it was a real hassle to find a foreign typeface Therefore, I think this is a period in time, when it’s extremely important for graphic that included Cyrillic family. Has the situation changed? Do Western foundries designers to learn as much as possible about different script systems, and con- design more typefaces, which include Cyrillic? sider their specifics at the beginning of the project, not at the end.

Yes, a lot more. I believe all big type foundries today design Cyrillic. In my opinion, What other knowledge do foreign designers require in order to work with Cyril- this is due the growing number of Cyrillic colleagues that they can reach out for lic? Do they need to understand the language? help. Cyrillic designers are gaining more and more credibility and their opinions and suggestions are getting heard. Before, there was this stigma about Eastern Knowing the language is not important. Designer must be attentive to details. European market that fonts are only being stolen and distributed illegally. But now, Speaking about the most obvious differences, that are often not considered, one with an active establishment of serious Cyrillic type foundries, Western studios can mention that Russian text and headlines are usually much longer than English. see that making business and earning money is possible. So designer must think how to adapt the layout, leading, tracking in order to keep the same hierarchy with words, that are twice longer. A lot of IT-companies, which enter the international market, eventually find them- selves in need of expanding their chosen typeface with Cyrillic and other scripts. We also have small descending elements in letters like Ц and Д. In Latin graphic This also gives an opportunity to develop additional Cyrillic families. designers often set the text very tight, which is not possible with Cyrillic. Unless it’s some kind of radical concept, one should encompass the required leading, Speaking of collaboration between Western and Eastern studios, do they usu- and shouldn’t try to reduce or cut off these elements. ally develop typefaces on their own and consult Cyrillic designers in the pro- cess? Or do they hire Cyrillic specialists to fully manage the development of You have studied abroad. Do you know if Western universities teach their stu- Cyrillic part? dents about other script systems than Latin?

There are several strategies and they are constantly changing. From my personal They are trying to. Type designers are in general more curious about other script experience I can tell, that when the studio meets me for the first time, they usually systems and know a lot more about them than others. There is an English uni- prefer to work with me as a consultant, developing the font themselves and fol- versity Reading, that specialises on rare and extinct scripts. Royal Academy of lowing my reviews. Later on, especially for big orders, they were hiring me to work Art, The Hague, focuses on Latin, but they have small blocks dedicated to other on Cyrillic on my own. I think both ways are important. I even prefer consulting scripts.

72 73 Graphic designers, on the other hand, have problems with this. They look at great references with Latin typography and try to use the same typefaces and tricks, 9.3 I!terview but turns out that it doesn’t work. I think, graphic designers should be given the assignments of working with different languages, and have a chance to consult someone about it. Teachers must show not only Latin or Cyrillic examples, but with graphic desig!er also Japanese, Arabic and others. Because each script system has its own rhythm, and it’s rather an advantage than disadvantage. Designers should learn to use that. It’s important to teach to recognise and respect other scripts. If you don’t A!!a Kulachek know how to work with a certain script, go and consult someone. Often people start working on projects without having sufficient knowledge in the topic. Anna is a Russian graphic designer currently working and living in New York. Why is it important for graphic designer to use good quality Cyillic typefaces? Besides other creative projects, she works as an art-director of Moscow media, Besides some basic things like legibility, visual balance, can the choice of badly architecture and design institute “Strelka”, which is known for its expressive, designed typeface have a cultural impact of the message? colourful bi-lingual brand identity. Winner of multiple design awards, she also teaches aspiring designers in several Russian educational institutions. No, I don’t think so. If it’s readable it’s readable. It’s more of a question… if we, as designers, want our work to be respected, we should also respect the work of our In one of your older interviews you said that one of your big passions is fashion. colleagues. I often notice, that some type festivals in Ukraine or Russia use, for One of the names that you mentioned was Gosha Rubchinskiy, who uses a lot example, Swiss typefaces in their advertisement. That’s great, but if you organise of Cyrillic typography in his clothes. Why do you think Cyrillic became so trendy a design related event, wouldn’t it be more logical to pick and support the type- at some ? face of a local designer? Give them a chance to show themselves. I think that’s important. This is our social duty. At some point different languages like Japanese, Chinese, then Russian were trendy. I think the new generation has grown up, they stopped feeling shy, If you’re doing a project with a language that you don’t know, try to research local stopped using Latin and pretending to be American or European. Gosha Rub- foundries, what they offer. Today we have all the possibilities to find information. chinskiy was one of the first, who made a statement: “That’s who I am.” When For instance, if you’re working with , find out what are the spe- something happens sincerely and honestly, it attracts attention, since it’s some- cifics of their typography. You might notice that they have some special letterforms, thing unique. After the collapse of the Soviet Union everyone was ashamed of and this information would be useful in the search of typefaces. it, everyone wanted to live like in Europe. Gosha showed the aesthetics of our uptown neighborhoods to the world and the world got hooked. I think it’s more of a spirit. Our weird characters, trashy unadorned reality opposed to unrealistic Dior fashion, for example.

We live in the times of globalism. Everything gets mixed. Before different design schools and movements existed. There was Japanese, Polish, Dutch design. Now if you look at any graphic design blog, you won’t be able to guess where the designer is from. Whether he’s Swiss, Russian or American. Internet has granted us a very quick exchange of information.

You live and work abroad, and probably collaborate with Western designers. Are there any trends regarding Cyrillic type happening at the moment?

74 75 Western designers are very curious about Cyrillic. I took part in several projects, I can work with three fonts my entire life. Because I form my designs with the help where I was asked to use two different scripts. I think that combination of different of imagery, colours and shapes. scripts creates interesting textures. That’s why I like working with Strelka’s bi-lin- gual design, using both English and Russian. Sometimes working only with Latin Why is it important for a foreign graphic designer to have an ability to identify feels more boring to me than mixing several scripts. Cyrillic is rarely seen in the and use good quality typefaces in their projects? West and when you add it to the usual Latin, it looks like a special product. Ameri- cans don’t understand and don’t use it in their projects, that’s why they get excited When you work with a client you want what’s best for them. It’s the aesthetics of when they see me working with it. such approach and professional responsibility. You sell a client something he has no clue about, and it’s important to be honest and give your best. My friend Maria Doreuli is often hired for developing Cyrillic families for the fonts, because most American designers have no clue how to design it. 2018 FIFA Of course, as a concept, you can consciously pick a bad typeface for your design. World Championship has hired foreign designers to develop a typeface for them Couple times when I worked on party posters I was searching for typefaces on and I couldn’t look at those letters, they looked absolutely horrible. However, for Dafont and found some “pure diamonds” there. Trash design is also a thing. But them, maybe, it seemed interesting. And if I didn’t know Russian I might have for serious projects it’s important to use good quality materials, since it has to be had another opinion. There is a possibility, that without our traditional education, legible. I respect type designers’ craft. Western type designers can find new ways of designing Cyrillic. From your perspective, what do graphic designers need to know in order to Since you combine Latin and Cyrillic in your projects a lot, can you explain what start working with Cyrillic? are the major differences between these two scripts? Cyrillic and Latin are quite similar. Thus knowing the rules of Latin typography is There is a huge difference. First of all, there still aren’t enough Cyrillic typefaces. already sufficient. First, I would set Cyrillic the same way as Latin and findsome - More than 10 years ago, but still not enough. We have very few well designed one to consult with regarding the hyphenation, hanging prepositions and so on. sans-serif fonts. Perhaps this is due to the lack of Cyrillic type designers. Roughly It’s hard to grasp all of it, you have to grow up with the language, feel it. speaking, in the West every second person designs typefaces, and we only have Maria and five more good type designers. They don’thave enough time to satisfy I’ve also been noticing that Cyrillic doesn’t always look good in big size, especially the demand. next to Latin. Sometimes it has a lot oh “holes”. So I’m trying to perceive the text as a texture and adjust things manually. With the growing number of well designed Second of all, as we all know, modern Cyrillic type was created mechanically by Cyrillic typefaces we are moving closer and closer to Latin quality. Peter the Great, and sometimes it’s harder to create balanced lines of texts com- paring to Latin. Before everyone considered this a disadvantage, but lately it Currently there are no tendencies of teaching foreign script systems in interna- bothers me less and less. Good quality typefaces make any text look great. For tional educational institutions. Do you think it could be a beneficial initiative? instance, I’m working a lot with Lazurski font. Although it’s an old style typeface, Or should everyone just stick to their thing and keep consulting each other? it never goes out of fashion and guarantees beautiful timeless results. I adore it! I find it very interesting, to have an opportunity to learn about Chinese or Arabic, A whole other issue is finding a typeface that would look good both in English for example. At least the basics. I have a friend who’s currently working on a bi- and Russian. In Strelka’s design we use Fugue font. It looks very balanced in both lingual website for Hong Kong, and he’s facing a lot of troubles with type sizing, languages, thus I have forgotten about this issue for while. But generally it’s a big proportions etc. If he had the basic knowledge of Chinese script, if would have problem. saved him a lot of time and stress. Nevertheless, I would have ordered the devel- opment of Cyrillic typeface from a native designer. That’s just me. For example, To be honest, I’m quite superficial about type. I never search for the latest novel- Grillitype foundry also designs Cyrillic. From my point of view it’s okay, but Maria ties in type design. For me the most important thing in typography is proportion. doesn’t like it [laughs].

76 77 Regarding your work for “Strelka” institute. Why was the brand identity devel- oped by a London-based studio OK-RM, not someone local?

It all happened before I started working there. As far as I know, first, there were attempts of development by Russian designers, but then the institute took a more globalised approach – inviting international speakers, organising programs in English – and decided to consult a Western studio. In my opinion, it’s also our Rus- sian thing, to invite foreigners, let them build something to set an example. Still they were consulted by Ukrainian designer Misha Smetana, who supervised Cyril- lic part, since bi-lingual approach was very important.

In 2014 Strelka invited me to develop the identity further. The institute started expanding and a simple grid offered by OK-RM wasn’t enough anymore. I began to play around, adding shapes and colours. We used the original identity as a soil to grow a more playful and flexible approach. Strelka keeps asking me to change it every year and I say: “Why? It’s perfect!”. Considering, that ironically OK-RM has picked my favorite Lazurski as one of the identity fonts.

By the way, a little funny story about Lazurski to wrap up the interview. I used it in a project for American music institution, and they have asked me about the font. I told them about a Russian designer Lazurski and it completely freaked them out. For some reason Americans could not comprehend the use of Russian font.

78

C y rillize it!

For visual communicators, language and more specifically, type, is essential and one of the most powerful tools for conveying messages and creat- C ril ing meaning. And the more tools you can master, the more powerful you become. Simple as that. y A guide on Cyrillic typography for graphic designers lize

it! Yana Vekshyna

Гид по кириллической A guide on Cyrillic типографике для typography for графических дизайнеров graphic designers Cyril lize

it! Yana Vekshyna

Гид по кириллической A guide on Cyrillic типографике для typography for графических дизайнеров graphic designers 6 Introduction

Relevance 11 Cyrillic is the new black

Con- History 29 How it all began 33 Peter the Great 35 Soviet period

Type tents 43 Basic rules

48 Letters 54 Бб 58 Гг 60 Дд 62 Жж 64 Зз Огла- 66 Ии 68 Йй 70 Кк 72 Лл 74 Пп 76 Уу 78 Фф вле- 80 Цц 82 Чч 84 Шш Щщ 86 Ъ Ы Ь 88 Ээ 90 Юю ние 92 Яя Interview 23 Anna Kulachek 95 Maria Doreuli Russian alphabet There is a difference in the way we pronounce the letters of the alphabet, and the sounds they actually represent. The following table provides the approximate English phonetic equivalents of each letter of the Russian alphabet.

Aa Бб Вв Гг Дд A as in "father" B as in "bad" V as in "vine" G as in "good" D as in "do" Ее Ёё Жж Зз Ии YE as in "yes" YO as in "your" ZH as in "pleasure" Z as in "zoo" I as in "police" Йй Кк Лл Мм Нн Y as in "toy" K as in "kept" L as in "line" M as in "map" N as in "not" Оо Пп Рр Сс Тт O as in "more" P as in "pet" rolled R S as in "set" T as in "top" Уу Фф Хх Цц Чч U as in "tool" F as in "face" H as in "hole" TS as in "tsar" CH as in "check" Шш Щщ Ъъ Ыы Ьь SH as in "sharp" SHCH as in "fresh cheese" hard sign IH as in "ill" soft sign Ээ Юю Яя E as in "met" YU as in "use" YA as in "yard" It is not a secret that we live in a world where constant inter- action between cultures strongly influences our everyday life. We meet people, get exposed to products, hear the news about countries that we didn’t even suspect existed several years ago. Our cultural landscapes are expanding Intro- and becoming more diverse thanks to the development of digital media. For visual communicators, language and more specif- ically, type, is essential and one of the most powerful tools for conveying messages and creating meaning. And the more tools you can master, the more powerful you become. duc- Simple as that. And now the time has come to dive into the world of Cyrillic type, with its rules, peculiarities and turbulent his- tory. Foreign scripts might look alien and even somewhat intimidating at first sight, but in the case of Cyrillic script we are lucky, since it closely resembles Latin in terms of origin, tion development and typographic rules. To put it short: Latin graphic is the foundation of modern Cyrillic type. Like Latin, Cyrillic is a script written from left to right. Characters in both types share basic common features, such as hight, width, contrasts, angles of bowls, serifs, stems, strokes. 16 uppercase and 12 lowercase characters Вве- in modern Cyrillic fonts have identical letterforms in Latin. Down to the numbers. Today the Cyrillic alphabet is used by around 250 million¹ people in the world. The larg- est amount of users stem from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Upon entering the European Union in 2007, Cyrillic became the third of the European Union, after дение Latin and Greek scripts. The extended Cyrillic alphabet is used by more than 100 languages and altogether includes

7 ¹ Data of 2019. Wikipedia: Cyrillic script more than 145 letters ², but this book focuses on the explo- discipline in Eastern European countries. It is still only being ration of Russian alphabet and its 33 letters in particular, taught in about a dozen high education institutions. How- since it is the most used. ever in the last ten years the industry has made a strong The Cyrillic alphabet was invented specifically for its push towards the revival of Cyrillic type and graphic design. languages and special sounds. A single letter represents This has encouraged the emergence of new type found- a single sound, which makes the reading process fairly ries, the formation of a relevant professional community and easy and straight forward. Each word is pronounced the cooperation with Western designers. way it is written, unlike for example in French or English where a combination of several letters may produce differ- ent sounds. For a foreigner, it would be enough to learn the sounds that each letter represents, in order to be able to read straight away. While Latin-based languages use dia- critics to represent special regional sounds, in Cyrillic the characters often tend to change their letterform rather then acquire a diacritical element [1].

Кк Ққ Ҟҟ Ҡҡ Ӄӄ Ҝҝ Ее Ёё Ӗӗ Ҽҽ Ҿҿ Єє [1] Variations of Cyrillic letters K and E in different languages

Cyrillic type as we know it today is still in development. In the 18th century it went through a drastic redesign exe- cuted by a person, who was neither a type designer nor had any knowledge of the field. In addition to this, decades of stagnation in type design during the Soviet times have resulted in a 300 year quest for harmony and a unified con- struction system of all characters, which continues today. Due to its bumpy history, Cyrillic type design is a fairly young

8 ² According to Unicode version 10.0 9 Cyrillic Rele- is the vance new black In the last 15 years Cyrillic type has become more visible in West- ern countries. After the collapse of Soviet Union and the fall of the Iron Curtain, which separated the Eastern block from the develop- ing West, a new generation of artists and designers has been given an opportunity to join the world arena and demonstrate their talent. Emerging Eastern European fashion brands, such as Gosha Rubchin- sky, Vatements, Andrey Artyomov [2, next page] made a major break Акту- through across runways in Paris, London and New York, proudly flashing Cyrillic slogans and a trashy style of the underprivileged soviet working class. As for the graphic design world, international interest was allegedly sparked in 2003 after the launch of "Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia” published by Fuel [3]. For foreigners, Cyrillic letters looked mysterious and exotic, similar to a trend in Japanese kanji tattoos earlier. Both Western and Eastern European youth quickly took on a style that represented the аль- [3] First vol- crazy, adventurous and controversial life of the post-Soviet 90s – an ume of “Russian Criminal Tattoo association with exciting, exotic, trashy youth that they never had. Encyclopaedia” This way Cyrillic quickly found its way into the underground scene, published by and from there was adopted by musicians and designers in a search Fuel in 2004 for a rough and unpolished expression. The social and political situation of the last two decades in Eastern Europe has also greatly influenced the popularisation of the ность script. Before then no one had an idea what was going on in that part of the world, but in the last 25 years Eastern European coun- tries through several loud political statements, even revolutions, have

11 Cyrillic letters — flat, angular and heavy — are not loved for their beau- ty, but for being different, alienating and even slightly intimidating. Anastasiia Fedorova, writer

Socks by Russian brand Sputnik 1985

[2] Campaign for 2015 collection of Ukrainian designer Yulia Yefimtchuk

Collaboration of Russian designer Gosha Rubchinskiy with Adidas “Style” turtleneck by American designer Heron Preston turned people’s heads in their direction. The world was given the In 2018 there was a big typographic scandal at FIFA World chance to finally observe and rethink the image of post-soviet coun- ² “Font scandal at Cup Russia ². Portuguese brand agency Brandia Central presented FIFA World Cup”, tries, thus creating the concept of the “new east”, which was quickly type.today, identity for the championship, accompanied by the typeface “Dusha” appropriated by pop-culture. Although this “new east” is rather a July 10 2018 that was developed specifically for the cause. It was supposed to be myth and collection of stereotypes and attributes, than a true depic- based on Russian traditional historic letterforms and compliment the ¹ “Word up: how Cy- tion of post-Soviet life ¹. rounded logo. According to the claims of the type designer, who was rillic typography - became the lingua Nevertheless, Cyrillic started spreading, and the lack of knowl hired to produce the functional font, he was given drawings of the franca for under- edge about it became apparent. One of the biggest issues with the characters created by the studio’s Russian intern and was forbidden ground fashion”, script still today is that very few typefaces include Cyrillic family. Anastasia Fedorova, to make any changes. As a result, the world has seen a typeface with The Calvert Jour- When planning a project with Cyrillic, be prepared to face serious unnaturally distorted characters in both Latin and Cyrillic sets. On top nal, 6 June 2014 limitations in the choice of typefaces. In most cases, fonts developed of that, the obviously decorative type that was intended for limited use in Western countries don’t include Cyrillic at all. And those which do, in headlines and titles, was misused in big text settings. however, sometimes make clear mistakes in the characters, making the typeface a bad choice for graphic designers in the sense of read- ability, balance and aesthetic impression. Even type design giants like Monotype and Hoefler&Co. have typefaces in their collection that have pretty contentious issues with Cyrillic part [4]. This mostly seems to happen when type foundries trust non-native designers to develop the font without consulting the specialists from Eastern European countries. [5] Official logo of 2018 FIFA World Championship and typeface “Dusha” k with highlights on questionable details from [ ] дублёнка 4 type.today Joanna Sans Nova, letter б has a vague tail and weird thickness distribution; letter л looks Regular unfinished, left stroke terminal has an unsuitable olutions for the overall style from of Latin the typeface; Cyrillic к has a different construction k for no reason лобода Gotham, Book oldstyle triangular shape of д and л seems like an unreasonable solution forLatin such typesetting a modern and live font; comparing to Cyrillic, It doesn’t mean however, that Western type foundries and looks much softer and smoother designers can’t be trusted. Although, it is always a good idea to consult a native user of the script when working on a project that contains Cyrillic type. Typotheque is one company with a large num- ber of Cyrillic fonts developed by Russian type designers. Lucas Fonts (Berlin, Germany) and Black Foundry (Paris, France) are also ФЕОДАЛКА considered to be one of the best Western studios producing Cyrillic. Arial, Regular К, strokeД and Лof are too narrow, Е is too wide, Ф is too small, left Л– no is onetoo designsstraight and should be more tilted to the right With both studios counting type designers from Russia and Ukraine it this way anymore in their teams. And let’s not forget the growing number of Eastern

14 15 European type foundries, producing more and more fresh, experi- mental, good quality fonts. Particularly notable are Paratype, Brown- fox, Letterhead, Contrast Foundry, CSTM Fonts, type. today and type. tomorrow. Although typographic rules for Cyrillic are not extremely dif- ferent from Latin, misuse also occurs in the graphic design field. A common trick, which foreign designers try to pull off, is using Cyril- lic letters as a quirky substitute for Latin. My personal favorite exam- ple is a hoodie designed by H&M with meaningless set of charac- ters НЦМДИТУ ЦЙІТЗD [4]. For any native Cyrillic user this looks like random letters accidentally typed on keyboard, despite the H&M designers actually intending to write HUMANITY UNITED. Tricks like this tend to look more like cultural appropriation than good design. A more elegant solution would be writing the phrase in Cyrillic trans- literation [5]. Since each Cyrillic character represents one sound, it is quite easy to transliterate any word from any language based on its spelling. This method is quite trendy in fashion at the moment, and might give your design a stylish humorous twist.

[6] H&M hoodie with a gibberish slogan

[7] Sputnik1985 t-shirt saying “I don't like you” in Cyrillic trans- literation

[6] [7]

Of course, graphic design projects with Cyrillic are more com- mon in the countries of native users. Nevertheless, there are quite

a few successful project, realised by Western designers and design groza.design, poster for a master class studios. “Land art sculpture”, 2016

16 17 Anna Kulachek, identity for the Summer Prague School of Design, 2015

Anna Kulachek, Palmistry and Throwing Shade Anna Kulachek, Strelka’s The New Normal poster, 2017 at Strelka poster, 2016

Bruno Ponceano, visual identity Anna Kulachek, & album cover for NoPorn music Summer Closing Party project, 2019 Invitation, Strelka, 2017 Facultative Works, identity for Coffee Point cafe, 2018

Ira Ivanova, poster for Ping Pong Club Moscow , 2014 groza.design, “Digital Emotion” exhibition poster, 2015

miguel anønimo, booklet for traveling series “The Sofia Issue”, 2018 Anna Inter- Kulachek

Anna is a Russian graphic designer currently working and living in New York. Besides other creative projects, she works as an art-director of Moscow media, architecture view and design institute “Strelka”, which is known for its expres- sive, colourful, bi-lingual brand identity. Winner of multiple design awards, she also teaches aspiring designers in sev- Инте- eral Russian educational institutions.

In one of your older interviews you said that one of your big pas- sions is fashion. One of the names that you mentioned was Gosha Rubchinskiy, who uses a lot of Cyrillic typography in his clothes. Why do you think Cyrillic became so trendy at some point? рвью At some point different languages like Japanese, Chinese, then Rus- sian were trendy. I think the new generation has grown up, they stopped feeling shy, stopped using Latin and pretending to be Amer- ican or European. Gosha Rubchinskiy was one of the first, who made a statement: “That’s who I am.” When something happens sincerely and honestly, it attracts attention, since it’s something unique. After the collapse of the Soviet Union everyone was ashamed of it, every- one wanted to live like in Europe. Gosha showed the aesthetics of our uptown neighbourhoods to the world and the world got hooked. I think it’s more of a spirit. Our weird characters, trashy unadorned reality opposed to unrealistic Dior fashion, for example.

23 For me the most important thing in typography is proportion. I can work with three fonts my entire life.

We live in the times of globalism. Everything is mixed. Before Since you combine Latin and Cyrillic in your projects a lot, can you different design schools and movements existed. There was Japa- explain what are the major differences between these two scripts? nese, Polish, Dutch design. Now if you look at any graphic design blog, you won’t be able to guess where the designer is from. Whether There is a huge difference. First of all, there still aren’t enough Cyril- he’s Swiss, Russian or American. Internet has granted us a very quick lic typefaces. More than 10 years ago, but still not enough. We have exchange of information. very few well designed sans-serif fonts. Perhaps this is due to the lack of Cyrillic type designers. Roughly speaking, in the West every You live and work abroad, and probably collaborate with Western second person designs typefaces, and we only have Maria and five designers. Are there any trends regarding Cyrillic type happening more good type designers. They don’t have enough time to satisfy at the moment? the demand. Second of all, modern Cyrillic type was created mechanically Western designers are very curious about Cyrillic. I took part in sev- by Peter the Great, and sometimes it’s harder to create balanced eral projects, where I was asked to use two different scripts. I think lines of texts comparing to Latin. Before everyone considered this that combination of different scripts creates interesting textures. a disadvantage, but lately it bothers me less and less. Good quality That’s why I like working with Strelka’s bi-lingual design, using both typefaces make any text look great. For instance, I work a lot with English and Russian. Sometimes working only with Latin feels more ² Lazurski was de- Lazurski font ². Although it’s an old style typeface, it never goes out boring to me than mixing several scripts. Cyrillic is rarely seen in the signed by Paratype of fashion and guarantees beautiful timeless results. I adore it! in 1984. Inspired West and when you add it to the usual Latin, it looks like a special by 16th century A whole other issue is finding a typeface that would look good product. Americans don’t understand and don’t use it in their proj- typefaces of Ital- both in English and Russian. In Strelka’s design we use Fugue font ³. ian ects, that’s why they get excited when they see me working with it. It looks very balanced in both languages, thus I have forgotten about ¹ The interview My friend Maria Doreuli ¹ is often hired for developing Cyril- ³ Fugue is a geo- this issue for while. But generally it’s a big problem. with Maria Doreuli metric sans-serif is on page 95 lic families for the fonts, because most American designers have no typeface designed To be honest, I’m quite superficial about type. I never search clue how to design it. 2018 FIFA World Championship has hired for- by Radim Peško for the latest novelties in type design. For me the most important eign designers to develop a typeface for them and I couldn’t look thing in typography is proportion. I can work with three fonts my entire at those letters, they looked absolutely horrible. However, for them, life. Because I form my designs with the help of imagery, colours and maybe, it seemed interesting. And if I didn’t know Russian I might shapes. have had another opinion. There is a possibility, that without our traditional education, Western type designers can find new ways Why is it important for a foreign graphic designer to have an ability of designing Cyrillic. to identify and use good quality typefaces in their projects?

24 25 Regarding your work for “Strelka” institute. Why was the brand When you work with a client you want what’s best for them. It’s the identity developed by a London-based studio OK-RM, not someone aesthetics of such approach and professional responsibility. You sell local? a client something he has no clue about, and it’s important to be hon- est and give your best. It all happened before I started working there. As far as I know, first, Of course, as a concept, you can consciously pick a bad type- there were attempts of development by Russian designers, but then face for your design. Couple times when I worked on party posters the institute took a more globalised approach – inviting international ₄ ₄ Dafont is a web- I was searching for typefaces on Dafont and found some “pure dia- speakers, organising programs in English – and decided to consult site for download- monds” there. Trash design is also a thing. But for serious projects ing free fonts a Western studio. In my opinion, it’s also our Russian thing, to invite it’s important to use good quality materials, since it has to be legible. foreigners, let them build something to set an example. Still they were I respect type designers’ craft. consulted by Ukrainian designer Misha Smetana, who supervised Cyrillic part, since bi-lingual approach was very important. From your perspective, what do graphic designers need to know in In 2014 Strelka invited me to develop the identity further. order to start working with Cyrillic? The institute started expanding and a simple grid offered by OK-RM wasn’t enough anymore. I began to play around, adding shapes and Cyrillic and Latin are quite similar. Thus knowing the rules of Latin colours. We used the original identity as a soil to grow a more play- typography is already sufficient. First, I would set Cyrillic the same ful and flexible approach. Strelka keeps asking me ot change it every way as Latin and find someone to consult with regarding the hyphen- year and I say: “Why? It’s perfect!”. Considering, that ironically OK-RM ation, hanging prepositions and so on. It’s hard to grasp all of it, you has picked my favourite Lazurski as one of the identity fonts. have to grow up with the language, feel it. By the way, a little funny story about Lazurski to wrap up the I’ve also been noticing that Cyrillic doesn’t always look good interview. I used it in a project for American music institution, and in big size, especially next to Latin. Sometimes it has a lot oh “holes”. they have asked me about the font. I told them about a Russian de- So I’m trying to perceive the text as a texture and adjust things manu- signer Vadim Lazurski and it completely freaked them out. For some ally. With the growing number of well designed Cyrillic typefaces we reason Americans could not comprehend the use of Russian font. are moving closer and closer to Latin quality.

Currently there are no tendencies of teaching foreign script systems in international educational institutions. Do you think it could be a beneficial initiative? Or should everyone just stick to their thing and keep consulting each other?

I find it very interesting, to have an opportunity to learn about Chinese or Arabic, for example. At least the basics. I have a friend who’s cur- rently working on a bi-lingual website for Hong Kong, and he’s facing a lot of troubles with type sizing, proportions etc. If he had the basic knowledge of Chinese script, if would have saved him a lot of time and stress. Nevertheless, I would have ordered the development of Cyrillic 5 Grilli Type is typeface from a native designer. That’s just me. For example, Grilli an independent Type 5 Swiss type foundry also designs Cyrillic. From my point of view it’s okay, but Maria doesn’t like it [laughs].

26 27 How it His- all began

¹ Phonemic struc- Cyrillic is a phonetic writing system that was developed in 9th–10th ture means the centuries in the First . Graphically the basis of the tory transfer of the sound of words script takes origins in Eastern Greek uncial script [8], but phonemic ¹ by written and structure was inherited from earlier Glagolitic ² [9 . some notional ] characters

² For a long time it was believed Исто- that Cyrillic was the oldest Slavic alphabet, until the discovery of 11th century Boy- anski palimpsest in 1840s. It was a Gospel book, orig- [8] Codex Tischendorfianus IV, 10th century, an example of Greek uncial inally written in script that served as an inspiration for Cyrillic alphabet Glagolitic, but in the 13th century рия the parchment was scrubbed off and rewritten in early Cyrillic. Luckily the traces of the previous writing were still visible enough to set the hypothesis for the primacy of the Glagolitic over the Cyrillic. Ear- ly specimens of Glagolitic are very rare to find and [9] Kiev Missal, second half of 10th century, one of the oldest samples cannot be dated. of Glagolitic writing

29 As in many other cases of language and script development, religion and politics played the major role in development of Cyrillic. It all started with the initiative of Louis the German of Bavaria to convert ³ Now territories the Slavic lands that were under his control to Christianity in 831 CE. of Czechia, Slova- - kia, Poland, Hun- As a result of political and religious affairs, it was decided that bibli gary, and perhaps cal scholarship had to be translated to Slavic languages, that were still Serbia, Wikipedia lacking a proper writing system. Structurally, Cyrillic script system underwent three main stages of development:

[10] Ostromir Gospels, 1056-57. Pay attention how close ustav letterforms are to Greek uncial script [7]

Invention of the first Slavic alphabet – Glagolitic – by Christian Gradually by the 15th century ustav transformed into poluustav missionaries Cyril (this is where the name “Cyrillic” comes from) and 5 The pioneers of (semi-uncial). This style of writing could be written faster, it already ³. Cyrillic printing - Methodius in 863 CE in Great Moravia were Ivan Fyodorov contained ligatures, diacritical characters and more varieties of let 1. (Russia), Schwei- terforms [11]. In the middle of the 16th century first Eastern Slavonic Development of early Cyrillic alphabet by the pupils of Cyril polt Fiol (Germa- printing was founded 5 ny) and Francysk , and since then poluustav was used as a main and Methodius in 893 CE. This time the alphabet was redesigned and Skaryna (Belarus) printing type and didn’t change much until Peter’s reforms. developed based mostly on the Greek letterforms, some characters were taken from Hebrew and Latin. However it still kept the phone- mic system of Glagolitic because of the sounds in Slavic languages, which could not be represented by other alphabets. Until today there is no proof regarding how, why and when this happened, so the date 2. and participants are purely theoretical. “Latinisation” of Cyrillic by the reforms of Russian Emperor Peter the Great in 1708-1710. Peter was obsessed with an idea of bringing Russian Empire closer to progressive European culture and politics. These reforms affected the alphabet too. Letters were rede- signed to look more like Latin, but this was done in such an amateur way, that Cyrillic only reached its standard letterforms in the 19th [11] “The Tale of Bygone Years” from Laurentian Chronicle, 1377 – example century, hundreds of years after the development of high standards of poluustav of Western type. 3. Ustav and poluustav were formal and complicated scripts for common people and were used mostly for the purposes of the church. This is why in the second half of 14th century skoropis (meaning “fast When it comes to the graphical styles of Cyrillic script, first writing”) started to develop. It could be written much faster than ustav ₄ Uncial is a script version developed by the students of Cyril and Methodius was called and poluustav and had a bigger variety of letterforms, which is why written entirely ustav. is an uncial ₄ style of writing that was characterised in capital letters, Ustav it was mostly used in more practical everyday needs [12]. It was also commonly used in by having only one weight, characters constructed with only straight the only kind of Cyrillic type that developed naturally, based on real 4th-8th centuries lines and no spaces between words. There was also no separation - by Latin and Greek handwriting and nib traces, just like Latin. In some modern italic let scribes. into uppercase, lowercase and italics [10]. terforms the influence of skoropis can still be found.

30 31 [12] Since skoro- pis was develop- ing naturally, it had many styles depending on the era and person's style of handwrit- Peter ing. Here are the examples from the 15th, 16th and 17th century. the Great

Peter I, undoubtedly one of the most influential rulers of Russian Empire, who reigned 1682–1725, had a dream to “cut a door to ¹ Phrase from the Europe” ¹. He was greatly inspired by Western Europe and the poem “The Bronze Horseman” by Enlightenment, and implemented a set of reforms that led to cultural, A. Pushkin, 1837 political and scientific revolutions. Type was one of them. In the area of script Peter was allegedly inspired by Louis XIV of France, who was also carrying out type reforms. The Sun King organised a special Roy al Com mis sion for the stand ard isa tion of craft that included working with typography. As a result, a special typeface called “Ro main du Roi” [14] was developed by the en gineer Jacques And one more important type style worth talking about is vyaz. It’s Jaugeon and the punch cut ter Phil ippe Grand jean de Fouchy. The first a decorative type that appeared in the 15th century and was in a way book that was printed with this typeface was found in the library of similar to Blackletter style in Latin. Vyaz is characterised by inter- Peter, and might have served as inspiration. But while for King Louis esting ligatures and different character sizes, which may vary for this affair was just a development of a new typeface, that was simply the sake of overall composition. It is still used for creating a historic a variation of a serif type and not so different from the previous ones, Slavic style [13]. Peter had an idea of reforming the whole script. There was no pre-existing natural script basis for the develop- ment of a new type. But Peter was so obsessed with the idea of mak- ing Russia a European country, that no one had the power or will to resist the King's desire to reform the type. Thus the reform ended up [14] Specimen being artificial and forced. of Romain du Roi Historians assume that there were several parties involved in typeface, 1692 the development process of the new type. First the Emperor him- self created the primary sketches. Then milit ary en gin eer and drafts- man Kuh len bach refined and finalised the King’s sketches. After that the sketches were sent to Amsterdam for the production of punches and matrices, and to the crafts men of the Mo scow Print ing Yard for [13] Example of vyaz from the 17th century the par al lel man ufac ture of the new let terforms. This whole affair started in 1706 and ended in 1710 with many rounds of corrections And then, in the 18th century came Peter the Great… from Peter. Unfortunately, the state of war, the lack of staff in the area

32 33 of type design in Russian Empire, the absence of any opposition to the Emperor’s decisions and general haste in the matter made their impact. In the end a “Frankenstein’s child” was born: the new type was a hybrid of Cyrillic and Latin serif, designed in a very amateur and eclectic way [15]. Soviet As a result of reforms, the quantity of characters was cut down from 45 to 38. Some old Greek and ustav characters were dropped. European minuscule numbers and punctuation marks were intro- duced, and the use of capital letters was systematised. Hyphenation of the long Russian words was also an important new addition. Ulti- period mately these changes made the books of Petrine epoch look a lot more like European ones. The new type received a name Civil type, since in was mostly used for the production of public literature, while During the type reform of 1917–1918 that followed the October Revo- poluustav was left exclusively for the needs of church. ¹ Reforms were al- lution, even more changes were made to Cyrillic script ¹ . In essence ready developed some of the historical characters were removed from the alphabet. in 1912 by a group of Russian philol- Soviet government very quickly took over the type and printing ogists, headed by a famous Russian industry and kept a monopoly over it until the end of USSR. During historian and this period over a thousand decorative typefaces from previous linguist Aleksey epochs were destroyed because of ideological reasons. While Latin Shahmatov was successfully and rapidly developing, unfortunately, this evolu- tion didn’t affect the Soviet Union much. Although heret was a revival of design and lettering in 1920s in the period of Constructivism and avant-garde, it did not lead to a big development in typefaces. The most significant representatives of type design in the Constructivism era were so-called “stick” type and Chekhonin’s type. Stick type [16] originated in Russian art and technical school Vkhute- mas, which was a bulwark of modernism in those times. It was an extremely simplified modular typeface, which received a massive dis- [15] Civil type Since then the “latinised” form of Cyrillic became traditional tribution in the USSR through propaganda and commercial printing. with Peter's notes, 1710 for many Slavic countries, and went through essentially the same stages of evolution as Latin. Interesting fact: designing italic was not a part of the Civil type. It appeared in Cyrillic after Peter’s reforms, only in the 1730s. How- ever it was not inspired by handwritten script, like in Latin, but by the engraved headlines on book titles, maps and other printed materi- [16] A fragment from the cover of als from Western countries. Step by step only in the late 18th – early Sergey Tretyakov's 19th century Cyrillic italics finally started to resemble Latin, which book, 1924 was most probably stimulated by the mass export of Didot types from France. As Cyrillic roman and italic characters developed separately, there is a big difference in lower-case letterforms: italic lower-case is graphically closer to Latin, while roman lower-case letters are mostly just a smaller copy of upper-case, based on the Emperor’s decision.

34 35 The so called “Chekhonin’s type” [17] was the opposite, very Type Design Department of the Research Institute of Printing dynamic, over-decorative, often illustrative type, designed by artist Machinery (Polygraphmash) was the only government-owned organi- Sergei Chekhonin. He was working for the glory of the Soviet party, sation that controlled the type industry. In 1989, close to the collapse and his type could be found in many books, magazines and agitation. of USSR, the first private type oriented company in years was estab- Both styles became a graphic symbol of the epoch. Due to the lack lished in Moscow. It is what we now know today as ParaType foundry. of fonts, Soviet calligraphy also experienced a huge development and At that time they had a license agreement with the Soviet Research this particular style of writing also still signifies the era. Institute for manufacturing and distribution of their archived typefaces. In Europe most designers know that typographic traditions [17] A fragment and inspiration stem from calligraphy and hand-written script – from the cover of these are logical stages of development of Latin type design. How- Elizaveta Polon- skaya's book, 1924 ever, due to an unfortunate chain of events, Cyrillic type was not given this chance in both Petrin and Soviet times. This is why in Cyril- lic there is no connection between written and printing type. Repro- ducing printing characters with a nib leads to a failure. In the 18th century without having a humanist base Cyrillic type designers started right away with Dutch serifs. And in 20th cen- tury the calligraphy step was missed again and designers once again tried to create dynamic sans-serifs and calligraphic serifs. In many cases, this process is doomed to eternal copying of trendy Latin tricks. However, new post-soviet generation of type and graphic designers In 1930 a standard on type sorts was issued, it distinguished are already searching for new approaches, digging for inspiration and which varieties of types were allowed to be used and produced by influences in their own background and history, which leads to new soviet type foundries. It only included 31 typefaces. Ironically, out and surprising solutions in type and typography. of all these typefaces, the most commonly used one was called ² Developed in 1899 “Lateinisch” ², which was used in 70% of printed books [18]. It was by Peter Schnorr for H. Berthold also ironic in 1920-30s, when the Soviet government carried out a foundry policy of latinisation of Russian and other alphabets of Soviet repub- lics. Their goal was to actually “get rid of the outdated Civil type”. However this process caused so many difficulties, misinterpretations and was so costly, that the government had to forgo these attempts.

[18] Lateinisch medium condensed

36 37 Development of A comparative table that shows the development of Cyrillic letterforms starting with the Glagolitic and going through the main stages of evolu- tion into the printing type. The final stage shows the modern Russian printing type, while in other Cyrillic-based languages particular charac- Cyrillic type ters evolved differently.

Glagolitic,

Ustav, 9th-14th century

Poluustav, 15th-18th century

Civil type, 18th century АБВГ Д Е ЁЖЗИ Modern Russian printing type 38 39 Glagolitic, 9th century

Ustav, 9th-14th century

Poluustav, 15th-18th century

Civil type, 18th century ЙКЛНОПРМ СТУФ Modern Russian printing type

Glagolitic, 9th century

Ustav, 9th-14th century

Poluustav, 15th-18th century

Civil type, 18th century Х ЦЧШЩЪ Ы ЬЭ Ю Я Modern Russian printing type 40 41 Basic Type rules

As mentioned, lowercase and uppercase letters have different origins. Uppercase, originated from Roman Capitalis Monumentalis inscriptions, have more straight lines and verticals and are very sta- ble. Lowercase letters that come from New Roman cursive are more dynamic, since they are based on the writing movement directed Типо- from left to right. That’s why in Latin upper- and lowercase characters mostly look different. In Russian Cyrillic, due to its development process, 26 out of 33 lowercase letters are just a smaller copy of capitals, which may look unnatural. Consequently, when formed in words and sentences, lowercase letters create a so called “middle shelf”, that cuts the text line in half [19]. Many Cyrillic lowercase characters have horizontal гра- bars, which is also not a common feature in Latin. There are also very few ascenders and descenders, which dramatically influences the overall look of the text, especially when compared to Latin. Due to [19] The difference these features there is a common stereotype that Cyrillic characters in English and Rus- sian text outlines look like a fence. фика The life of a designer is a life of fight against the ugliness. Жизнь дизайнера есть жизнь борьбы с уродством.

43 ¹ Presented by Rus- However this comparative analysis called “Layering of type” ¹ When working with Cyrillic, especially in combination with sian type designer Ilya Ruderman in shows that the stereotype is false. The most important difference in Latin in a single layout, it’s important to remember the following 2005 during his comparison with Latin is that a single Cyrillic character often contains aspects: MA Type and Media studies at the much more information, including the quantity of strokes and their Royal Academy direction [20]. Since Cyrillic characters almost don’t have ascenders and of Art, The Hague descenders, the interlinear space becomes much wider and - graphs have more contrast. In order to make Cyrillic and Latin text [20] Russian English 1. copies look balanced, the leading needs to be optically adjusted.

Vertical The lack of ascenders and descenders also makes Cyrillic elements characters look visually smaller than Latin. To balance the text you 2. will have to adjust text size by 0,5-1% depending on the typeface. Cyrillic characters are much wider than Latin. Thus you have to be prepared that Cyrillic text with the same amount of characters 3. and spaces will take 15-20% more space. Cyrillic characters have much less rounded elements, which Ascenders and influences the rhythm and colour of text page. Small tracking adjust- descenders 4. ments might be required. Slavic languages contain many single-letter prepositions and conjunctions like а, в, и, к, о, с, у, while in English there is only the article a. It’s best not to leave them hanging at the end of the text line, or it will create holes. Russian and any other Cyrillic-based languages have their own

Round rules of hyphenation. To find out the hyphenation of a particular word, elements ² Перенос – try googling “[your word] перенос” ² – this will take you to multiple perenos – means websites that will correctly break your word into syllables. Like in Latin “hyphenation” in English text-setting avoid using more then 4-5 hyphens in the standard text block and finishing the page with a hyphenated word. It is not common in Cyrillic to use ligatures. There are more and more cases of modern type designers trying to develop and implement this feature in new typefaces, so perhaps in the future it will be pos- sible to work with them. But at the moment don’t be surprised if you Diagonal don’t find any. elements Amongst other peculiarities of working with Cyrillic, one can highlight the use character № instead of #, Roman numerals for indi- cating centuries and em-dash instead of en-dash.

44 45 Cyrillic letters are beautiful, I love them deeply. They are similar to a fence around a jail, a very high fence with crossbars. Peter Bankov, graphic designer Буквы кириллицы прекрасны, искренне обоGаю их. Они похоGи на тюремное ограGдение — высо- ченное ограGдение с решетками. Петр Банков, графический дизайнер

46 47 Despite some obvious differences, Cyrillic script (together with Greek) still has the most graphically similar letterforms to Latin [21]. No other script in the world is so close.

D Let- Δ F I G JL Θ Ξ N Z Q R S Σ Ψ B X O У U V A ters M H Л Ω E Ф KB C T П Г Бук- Б ДИЖЗ Ё Й ЦЧЪЬШ Щ ЫЭЮЯ вы [21] Uppercase glyphs that share letterforms in Greek, Latin and Cyrillic In cases when an already existing Latin typeface needs an additional Cyrillic family, both systems have so many com- mon features that type designers can simply apply the method of “cyrillisation”, whereby a part of Latin glyphs are tailored into Cyrillic. In Russian alphabet there are already several characters that have the same letterforms: A B C E H M O P T X a c e o p x y. Some others require minimum transfor- mation, like B – Б Ъ Ы Ь, F – Г, K – К.

49 However, the bar in letter A cannot be dropped for stylis- As a suggestion, try using a set of letters БДабвджклмфя tic reasons, since it will be read as letter Л. It is also import- when picking Cyrillic fonts for your project. They will give ant to remember, that lowercase Cyrillic м is a copy of the you the first idea about the typeface, since these are char- uppercase. The use of the rounded Latin lowercase m acters that require the most attention and knowledge from should be avoided, since it represents Russian calligraphic type designers. lowercase т. For the rest of the characters it is important type desig- ners analyse the main characteristics of the Latin glyphs, such as characters’ height, the length of ascenders and de- scenders, shapes of serifs and ovals, angles of the axes, and apply them to the construction of additional Cyrillic letters. Some small typographic differences are also important to mention. Usually in Latin typefaces, decorative elements such as serifs and drop terminals are used according to their origin. Serifs come from Roman Monumentalis, thus used for upper-case letters. Drop elements were borrowed from calligraphic writing, which is why they are found in lower- case letters. This rule is applied in Cyrillic too, but it gets bro- ken in several cases, like Ж З К Л Э д з щ, where letters may contain both elements. Some characters in Cyrillic alphabet have a very strong reverse dynamic, like Я Ч З Э, which violates the natural flow of the text from left to right. In Latin characters d, j or q have also turned their back against the text direction, however you won’t have any problems writing them with your hand. Let- ters Я and Э were artificially added to the alphabetin the 18th century as print characters and are uncomfortable and un- natural to write. The following chapters of the book will address in detail each Cyrillic character and will help you to learn to identify the good quality Cyrillic fonts for your future design projects.

50 51 We can never make Cyrillic beauti- ful, because half of it consists of uninteresting, sluggish, similar looking characters. Latin part will be better by default. Yuri Gordon, type designer Нам никогда не сделать красивой кириллицу, потому что она почти наполовину состоит из неинтересных, вялых по конструк- ции, похоGих друг на друга знаков. Латинская часть будет

по определению лучше. Юрий Гордон, шрифтовой дизайнер Б б B as in "bad" Since the letter A has the same letterform as the Latin one, we will Graphically Cyril- begin this chapter with a second letter of Russian alphabet. Cyril- lic Б is the clos- est to Latin B lic got letter Б thanks to the evolution of Greek language. In Ancient Greek the sound used to be represented as B (beta), but in Middle Ages Greek language became softer and nowadays this letter is pro- nounced as V (vita). However in Slavic languages this sound is very important, which is why Cyrill and Methodius had to come up with a new character for it. Graphically it is very close to letter B and does not have many variations. The only complexity of this letter is the connection of the upper part of the bowl with a stem. In sans serif typefaces the con- nection is usually identical at the top and at the bottom at straight angles. In serif typefaces, the upper part of the bowl is often bent a little bit to the outside. The arm of Б has to be shorter than the bowl, otherwise the The arm of Б is БВ usually shorter letter will “fall” visually to the right. There are no exact rules about than the bowl.For this, but usually the arm of Б is a little bit wider than that of letter Г. the visual balance The angle of the serif may vary depending on the style of type- it is often wider than of letter Г face. In serif typefaces it’s often tilted to the outside. In slab serifs it is straight vertical. If the serif is tilted to the inside it might be a refer- ence to ustav.

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions БГ Ббб

Serif tilted to the Ббб inside references ustav. Tilted to the outside is a typi- cal serif typeface. Ббб Straight – . 54 55 Б б B as in "bad" Lower-case б is one of the very few “correct” lower-case letters, The tail of letter б is since it’s not a copy of upper case. It is also one of the most promi- double-bent and strives upwards. Its most hor- nent Cyrillic characters. izontal part is usually the thickest. The top of The first confusion a foreigner experiences when it comes number 6 has a tendency to this letter, is that lower-case б looks a lot like the number 6. There to close down. are, however, some important differences. First of all, letter б is writ- ten in three strokes and has a double-bent tail that strives upwards, while number 6 is written in two strokes and its top closes down. When it comes to small details, in the letter б the most hori- zontal place in the tale should be the thickest, and usually it becomes narrow at the end. The bowl of the б is usually lower than the bowls of other letters, to allow more space between the bowl and tail. Usu- 6 ally it goes up to the x-height, and in some cases even lower. The bowl of Cyrillic lowercase б tends to look like the one in Latin lower- case b, but with less bending to the right. The width of б is usually the same as o. In italic there is also an alternative version б with a tail di- б rected to the right. It has probably evolved in an attempt to adapt to European graphics. This version is much easier to write with the Lowercase б has the same The closest Latin char- width as letter o, but acter is b, but with a hand compared to the typographic one, and it is still used in Cyrillic its bowl is often lower less dramatic bending hand-written texts. than of other characters to the right

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions Ббб Ббб Ббб 56 57oб b Г г G as in "good" Г is structurally the simplest letter of Cyrillic. Its letterform is very Bottom serifs are usually designed close to Latin L or F, and with some additional adjustments both heavier than upper these letters can be easily transformed into Cyrillic Г. The main differ- ones – this is the ence with L is that in Latin type bottom serifs are usually heavier than main difference between Г and L upper ones, thus rotation and mirroring will not work properly – serif will need some extra attention. Often in the case of F, getting rid of the middle arm will grant you a perfect Cyrillic Г. Stay attentive though! In some typefaces the leg of Г might need to be shortened, otherwise it will not be balanced like F and will “fall” visually to the right. Due to much white space inside, letter Г also needs more kerning than F and L. Lowercase г is a copy of uppercase. Nevertheless in italic style you can sometimes meet a calligraphic lowercase г. Although it looks like a mirrored Latin s at first sight, ithas a totally different stroke. Due to the movement of the nib, s has a thick stroke in the Taking out the middle arm in Lat- L middle, while г has the thickest curves on the top and bottom. Trying Г in F often results to create it by mirroring s breaks the rules of calligraphy and makes in a perfect Г the letter less legible.

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions ГF Гг

Italic lowercase г and Гг Latin s have different thickness distribution. Thus mirroring of one character will not pro- Гг vide the desired result г s 58 59 Д д

D as in "do" Д has two basic forms – trapezium and triangle. Originally it was a Cyrillic Д and Latin D share copy of Greek Δ (delta) and that is how it was written in ustav in the the same origin 11th century. Over time Greek letter got rid of its little serifs at the bottom, while in Cyrillic they got even longer. These days triangu- lar Д is mostly only used in old-style serifs and simplified technical sans-serifs. The modern trapezium Д developed from the peculiar Petrine Д in Civil type that had one diagonal and one straight stem. Letter Д is not an easy character to design, thus in order to identify a well-designed Cyrillic font, pay attention to the following details. The counter (white space inside of the letter) should be care- fully balanced. The left curved stroke should be a little bit tilted to the right, not straight – this is a sign of a contemporary typeface. It also should not connect to the corner of the baseline – having enough space for the shoulders is important. Descenders should not be too ДD short, but of course shorter than in letter p. The left stroke of letter Funnily enough, Latin D also might look pretty natural in the Д should be tilted to the Cyrillic word. Probably because hand-written calligraphic D in Latin right. The strokes should not connect the baseline and Cyrillic are the same. in the corners – suffi- Lowercase italic д also has two alternative letterforms: like cient space is needed for the shoulders. Descenders reversed б (more common for print type) and like Latin g (typical for are a bit shorter than of hand-writing). Unfortunately the letterform of Д has not been final- letter p ised yet after 300 years and is still in development. Sans-serif, serif and italic versions Д Дд

Old-style triangular Д Дд is rarely used in modern typefaces, since it looks like letter A and disturbs Ддд legibility Д Д 60 61 Жж ZH as in "pleasure" The design of letter Ж is strongly connected to the construction of Technically letter Ж consists of two letter K. Technically letter Ж consists of two mirrored Ks with some Ks, that have to be adjustments, and in most typefaces they come in the same style. narrowed down. In That is a reason why Cyrillic type families rarely have a K with dou- most typefaces these two letters come in ble junction, because if you mirror them and put them together, the the same style middle part appears saggy and unbalanced. The whole construction should also be narrowed, otherwise Ж will be too wide. As mentioned before, letter Ж breaks the classical rules of de- corating in type. The upper legs of the characters can end with both serifs and drop elements, which is more typical for Soviet typefaces. Lowercase ж is a copy of the uppercase. However the design of an italic lowercase ж is based not on the style of к but c, which is more correct from a calligraphic perspective. This allows the letter to have alternative connection styles, like a simple horizontal line or zig- zag, which might look very different from the roman version. Upper legs can КК end both with serifs or drop elements

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions Ж Жж

Using Latin K with double Жж junction might result in a saggy middle part Жж KKK 62 63 З з Z as in "zoo" Interestingly, in old Cyrillic, before the Petrine reform, there were two Numbers are usu- ally more narrow letters that signified the sound “z” – S and З. Even Peter left letter than letters and S in the Civil type with his strong will to move towards Europe, but have different decorative ele- over time З won its way back into the alphabet. ments The biggest challenge with letter З is that it looks a lot like number 3. So be careful not to confuse them. These two characters actually have very important differences between them. First of all, numbers are usually more narrow than letters. Looking at decorative elements also helps to distinguish one from the other. Numbers are not upper-case characters, but high lower- case, thus they comply with the different type design laws. If both characters have serifs, they will be designed differently. In some serif typefaces letter З can have a serif on top and a drop at the bottom (another rule breaker), in which case number 3 will only have one of these elements. In other typefaces the number 3 can have a flat 3 top, which differentiates it from the letter. Having old style hanging Both Cyrillic З numeral in the font also helps. and Latin letters originated from the same Greek character ζ (zeta)

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions ζ Зз ЗZ Зз Ззз 64 65 Ии I as in "police" И is not a reflection of N – this is the most important thing to know. In Cyrillic И stems are bearing ele- These two letters have different origins, which informs the ayw they ments and diagonal are designed. И origins from greek letter H (eta). Still in ustav and is a connecting main stroke - line. In Latin N poluustav the bar was practically horizontal, sometimes even com it's the opposite pletely horizontal, and only over time, it did transform into a diagonal. The main difference between Cyrillic И and Latin N is the dis- tribution of thickness. The stems of И are bearing elements, thus connecting line they are thicker. This is the result of writing with a straight nib that originates from ustav. The diagonal is only a connecting line, thus it is thinner. In Latin N the stems play the role of connecting elements, as a result of a nib angled at 30 and 60 degrees. The diagonal of N is a main stroke. Unlike the letter N, in serif typefaces И usually has serifs on all four ends of the stems. It makes the character bulky, but stable. In this case the connecting diagonal starts a little above the lower ИN serif and ends a little bit under the upper one. In sans-serif typefaces И often has both serifs on all four ends to make the the diagonal often connects the ends of both stems. If it starts higher, character stable. Used font it is usually a reference to the old-style or modernist traditions. is inspired by old style - French typefaces, which While roman lowercase и is a copy of uppercase, the lower influences the way the diago- case italic и is once again designed differently and is almost always nal connects the stems a copy of Latin u.

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions Ии И Ии Ии 66 67 Йй Y as in "toy" While the main part of letter Й has the same construction as the pre- Cyrillic breve has the thickest parts viously discussed letter И, there is an additional diacritical symbol on on the ends, while top – breve, which is also present in Latin. Surprisingly though, Cyril- in Latin breve it's lic breve has a different shape. the middle In Latin a breve is usually narrow on the ends and has its thick- est part in the middle. Cyrillic breve, on the contrary, has thick parts on the ends (in serif typefaces it's drops) and the minimum weight in the middle. Italic breve might be a little different in some typefaces. It might have a drop only on the left, which makes it more dynamic. Generally diacritics are common for Latin languages, which is why in typefaces they are often big and positioned pretty far from the the characters. In Russian Cyrillic there are only two letters with dia- critics – Ё and Й. In order to not stand out too much, their diacritics often tend to “hide” by being very close to the character, in the case of Й they are even pushed inside a little. ЙĬ

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions Йй We are used to Йй «Й» with Mickey

Йй Mouse ears. Yuri Gordon 68 69 Кк K as in "kept" Be prepared that in many typefaces Cyrillic and Latin K can be differ- A bent tail is more common for ent. This is not due to the substantial difference between these two Cyrillic K, while letters – on the contrary, they represent the same sound and have Latin K often ends with a straight the same letterform in both languages – but due to the connection leg and a serif between K and Ж. If in the font certain elements like drops, serifs or type of connection make letter Ж work, then K ideally includes the same elements. Generally, having a serif on the bottom stroke is more typical of Latin K, and having a bended tail is more common to Cyrillic. Also having an extreme double junction in Cyrillic K is unlikely, or it has to be treated by a type designer with care. КK Cyrillic lowercase к is a copy of an uppercase and does not have a typical Latin ascender. Italic lowercase к and ж do not have to be related in construction, unlike roman ones. Another common option of Cyrillic K. Having a double junction is very unlikely.

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions K Кк

Lowercase italic к and Кк ж don't have to be re- lated in construction Кк к ж 70 71 Лл L as in "line" Just like letter Д, letter Л is still in development for a perfect balanced Although in some cases triangular Л letterform. In the 18th century Л and Д still had a triangular shape, can be created by but by the end of the 19th century they became almost rectangular. rotating Latin V, In modern typefaces it is common to tilt the left stoke a little rectangualar one has very distinc- to the right. However in 1980s there was a rule to design it at a right tive straight stem angle, so don’t be surprised when you come across one. It is not a and bent stroke mistake, but it is not a contemporary solution either. In some typefaces you might meet an Л with a drop element on the end of the left stroke, which is once again, breaking the rules of calligraphy. This is however just a solution to logically finish a weak, thin element. While lowercase roman л is another copy of the uppercase, in some cases lowercase italic л can have its top part rounded or spiky, which is a result of hand-writing forms. The most important thing to remember is that Cyrillic Л, espe- In modern typefaces it is common to tilt V cially its rectangular version, is not an upside-down Latin V. Left stroke Л the left stroke to the of an Л tends to bend at the end, while V’s right stroke has a very clear right and end it with straight serif. a terminal. In serif typyfaces terminal is often made thicker or becomes a drop element

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions Л Лл

Looking similar from Лл the first sight, italic lowrecase л and v have Ллл very different strokes л v 72 73 Пп P as in "pet" Another simply constructed Cyrillic letter. It originates from the Greek Letter П has a simple construc- letter Ππ ( pi ) . Probably the most important detail worth noting about tion, but can be this letter is that in serif typeface it must have all six serifs, at the bot- easily mistaken for letter Л, if tom of stems and on both sides of the top part, as without them letter not taken proper П might be falsely perceived as letter Л. care of While roman lowercase п is a copy of uppercase, the typical italic lowercase п is a copy of Latin n.

It's important for Пletter Л П to have two straight stems with all six serifs on the ends

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions Пп П Пп Пп 74 75 Уу

U as in "tool" Cyrillic letter У comes in two variations: with straight and rounded Cyrillic У and Latin Y originate connections. Structurally, the straight stroke version is basically Latin from the same V with a tail that continues down and to the left. The version with the Greek character rounded element is more rare and typical of typefaces with rectangu- Υυ (upsilon) lar letterforms. Although at first sight У looks like X without a leg, it is not pos- sible to achieve a successful character with such a manipulation. Cyrillic У has a different inclination angle, and if you just take the leg from X, the resulting character will have no stability. Even though У is an uppercase letter, it should not end with a serif, but with a ball terminal or bend at the end. Lowercase y is iden- tical to Latin.

У cannot be creat- УY ed by cutting the leg of X. Adding a terminal to the reduced letter V makes more sense

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions УX Уу

A rare version of У with Уу a rounded connection can be seen in typefaces with Уу rectangular letterforms У 76 77 Фф

F as in "face" Ф is a pure Greek letter and oneof a kind. It does not fit into either The stem of letter Ф often ascents the Latin, or Cyrillic matrix, and all its Greek relatives, which used to and descnets over be included in Cyrillic alphabet are long gone. the cap-height It is also quite a complex character in terms of form, and cre- ating it in a wrong way greatly impacts the quality of the typeface. Here are the things worth paying attention to: firstly, the stem often ascends a little bit over the cap-height. This helps to keep the bowl not too squeezed. In some cases the stem also descends. Secondly, the distance between the bowls and serifs is usually smaller on the top and bigger at the bottom for the visual balance of the letter. An interesting fact about the lowercase ф is that it has the longest stem of all Latin and Cyrillic characters. As Russian type de- signer Yuri Gordon noted: “No one knows for sure, where it should start”. Sometimes it goes all the way from the top ascender line to the bottom of . In other cases, it starts a bit lower than b and P ends at the same spot as p. Ф Earlier it was common to create the round part of Ф with two Lowercase ф has the longest stem o’s. Today it is more common practice to create it out of the halves out of all characters. It often starts at the ascender line and of an o. This helps to identify the modernity of the typeface. ends at the descender level

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions Фф Фф Фф pф b 78 79 Цц

TS as in "tsar" Ц starts a set of letters that are exclusively Cyrillic and don’t have ei- Structurally Ц ¹ in Greek lan- is an upside-down ther Latin or Greek origins, due to the lack of sibilants П with a typical ¹ Sibialnt is a guage. Cyril and Methodius had to come up with their own letter- small Cyrillic char- descender acterized by a forms for these sounds. The origin of the letter is not clear, but it has .tsade) from Hebrew alphabet) צ hissing sound a strong resemblance with the letter like s or sh Structurally the main part of Ц is an upside-down letter П. Sometimes it can be narrowed a little bit for better balance, but that is not necessary. A tail can have three different shapes: regular serif; tilda stroke, sometimes with a drop on the end, typical for old style archaic serif typeface; s-shaped tail – calligraphic or pseudo-calli- graphic style. Probably, the roots of this diversity come from the sketches of Peter the Great, where letter Ц had five different tails in different type sizes. Lowercase roman ц is a copy of uppercase, but italic ц is Latin u with tail. ЦП

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions Цц

A tail can have differ- ent shapes depending on the style and age of the Цц typeface Цц Ц 80 81 Чч CH as in "check" Back in ustav letter Ч used to look like Y, but with time the symmetry Although they was lost and the letter became reversely dynamic. are close by let- terforms, letter For a foreigner letter Ч might look like H without a leg. How- Ч cannot be made from upside-down ever, these two letters are not connected. The form of letter Ч was Latin h. The arch inspired by chalice, thus it has a unique, asymmetrical arch, which of Ч doesn't sag may vary in design and is not used in any other Cyrillic characters. It is that much and the character itself also not an upside-down h. The arch of Ч doesn’t sag that much. is much wider Sometimes you can come across a Ч with a straight horizon- tal stroke. This was mostly typical for Constructivist typefaces and makes the letter very rough and bulky. Letter Ч resembles number 4 a little bit, however 4 has a slant- ed left stem and a closed contour. Sometimes this play on shapes is used in design. Usually both roman and italic lowercase ч look like a copy of uppercase. There is an alternative italic version that resembles cal- h ligraphic Latin lowercase r. Today it is rare, since this version of a let- Ч ter is less legible in Russian and other Cyrillic texts. In some typefac- es letter Ч might resemble number 4. However number 4 has a slanted left stem and often a closed top

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions Чч Ч4 Чч Чч 82 83 Gш Щщ

SH as in "sharp" Another letters inspired by the Hebrew alphabet due to the lack of Щ is the widest character of the Russian alphabet, shin). since structurally it's) ש SHCH as in sibilants in Greek language, most probably by the letter "fresh cheese" Щ is the widest character of the Russian alphabet. Visually, a combination of Ш and Ц. - That's why in the font Щ this character is a mixture of letters Ш and Ц, therefore in any type and Ц have the same style face it has the same style of tail as Ц. of the tail Italic lowercase ш looks much like an upside-down Latin m at first glance, but don’t be fooled. Even if the arches are identical, the upper and lower terminals are usually different. By construction this letter is closer to Latin u. These are the characters that contribute most of all to the perception of Cyrillic text as a fence. Ш and Щ are also the heroes of many internet memes about “crazy” Russian hand-written cursive, where unfortunately they tend only to hinder the reading of the text. But it is what it is. Щ

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions Шш Щщ ШЦ

Шш Щщ Lowercase italic ш ans m have very different upper Шш Щщ and lower terminals ш m 84 85 Ъъ Ыы Ьь

hard sign The following letters are quite special in the Russian language, since IH as in "ill" the sounds they represent are usually the hardest for foreigners to soft sign pronounce. The official names of these letters are r,ye yery, and front yer. While letter Ы is used in many Russian words, Ъ and Ь are also called hard and soft signs as they influence the letter standing before them, rather than act like a proper sound. Although there are both upper- and lower-case options, you most probably won’t find any words starting with these characters. There have also been several attempts to get rid of the hard sign Ъ throughout the history of the Russian language, and debate around it still continues. There are a few details in these characters worth keeping an eye on. Generally their letterforms are close to the В and в. Although turning the letter P upside down might be the firstimpulse, it is not a good idea. While this might work in some sans serif fonts, in serif bBy construction Ь is ЬВ closer to letter B, fonts the stress between the bowl and the stem is usually different in since lower and up- P and Ь, as a result of the nib movement. per bowls usually have different stress dis- Also make sure that the tail of ъ equals the half of т, and the tribution. That's why distance between two halves of ы is smaller than between letters ь rotating letter P won't give a proper result. and i, otherwise it does not look like a single character. Among other differenc- es, these characters have different size of counters and distance Sans-serif, between bowl and serif serif and italic versions Ъъ Ыы Ьь ЬР

Ъъ Ыы Ьь Distance between the elements of ы should be smaller then between Ъъ Ыы Ьь ь and i ы ьі 86 87 Ээ E as in "met" Э is one of the newest letters in Russian alphabet, and therefore does The bar of Э is not have any prototypes in ustav and poluustav. It was introduced usually longer than that of E into the alphabet with the reforms of Peter the Great. As for the letterform there are also no counterparts for this let- ter in Latin. The closest one is probably the letter C, but one should be careful mirroring C in order to create Э. These two characters have a different dynamic due to the way they are written by hand. Э has symmetrical upper and lower halves, while C leans to the bottom left. As for the bar, it may come in three options, depending on the style of the typeface: straight horizontal stroke, horizontal stroke with serif, and tilda. Besides, the bar in Э, it is usually longer than in E.

Although C is the closest letter to Э by the let-ЭЕ terform, it has a differ- ent dynamic of the stroke

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions ЭС Ээ

A bar can have differ- Ээ ent shapes depending on the style and age of the Ээ typeface Э Э 88 89 Юю YU as in "use" However peculiar this letter looks, historically Ю is essentially a lig- Technicaly letter Ю consists of H ature of IO. At first glance Ю might look like H and O put together. and O, but with a However in Ю the crossbar must be much shorter and O much more much shorter bar. The oval of O also narrow, otherwise the character is too wide. In italic style a bar in ю has to be narrowed has more freedom. It can be a diagonal or zigzag. HO Ю originated from the ligature I O

Sans-serif, serif and italic versions Ю Юю

Cursive ю can have vari- Юю ous alternative bars Юю 90 91 Яя YA as in "yard" Я is also a relatively new character, that came to us thanks to Peter Although close by - construction, Я the Great. No doubt that it looks like a mirrored Latin R. But remem and R often have bering that the design of each character follows the dynamic of a small differenc- es, like size of hand-writing – this is where all the differences in these two letters counters or the come from. Я follows a reversed dynamic, that’s why its terminal distance between looks visually uncomfortable. Unlike R, letter Я goes against the nat- bowl and serif ural direction of writing, its terminal sticks out in the opposite direc- tion. Also following calligraphic rules, the leg of Я should be thin [22]. It is a clear example of the absence of hand-written base in the alpha- bet created by the Russian Emperor. The shape of the leg is usually what differs Я from R. Letter R usually has a straight leg, while Я has a bent one. However, the sim- pler the typeface, the more it longs to be straightened. In some mod- ern geometrically simplified typefaces Я and R look the same. R Another popular alternaЯ- tive of Я with bent leg

Sans-serif, [21] Written with a nib, letter Я has a thin sloppy serif and tail, that type designers have to alter to look italic versions like letter R, in order to create a harmonious font Я Яя Яя Яя 92 93 Maria Inter- Doreuli

Maria is a Russian type designer that currently works in San Francisco. She graduated from Moscow Polytechnic University and Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. In 2013 view she opened her own type design studio Contrast Foundry, which develops typefaces for sale and works on custom projects for various clients. Maria is also one of the found- ers of educational platform “Type Design Workshop” and Инте- Cyrillic type related blog “Cyrillicsly”.

I would like to start with a somewhat provoking question. Russian type designer Yuri Gordon believes that Cyrillic script consists of uninteresting unattractive characters, and type designer can never create beautiful Cyrillic, Latin will be better by default. What do you рвью think about this statement? Well, I strongly disagree with that. I don’t think that there are beauti- ¹ Alexander Tarbeev ful and ugly scripts in general. My teacher Alexander Tarbeev ¹ says, is a Russian type designer and pro- that the term “beauty” has little relevance in type design, because fessor of Moscow it’s very subjective. I don’t think that Cyrillic script is in any way worse Polytechnic Uni- - versity than others. Yes, there are some specificities that should be consid ered when you design a font that includes both Latin and Cyrillic. Perhaps, it would have been even easier to work exclusively with Cyrillic or exclusively with Latin, since you have less characters and less design modules, that are quite different in Latin and Cyrillic.

95 But when you are trying to please everyone, some compromises have Cyrillic type as an addition to something already existing. It’s import- to be found in both systems. Or if we add more scripts to the font – ant to do, yes, but at the same time we are lacking the projects on this will create a rich beautiful complex system, but with even more such a level, that would allow constant improvement and updating limitations. of the font. This is the way most successful Latin fonts are developed. Besides, Cyrillic history wasn’t developing as smooth as Latin, Maybe things will change in 10 years. which also makes an impact on design process. But now we live in a time where the industry is blooming and everything develops very What would you wish things to be like in future? quickly, more and more new typefaces appear. That makes me happy. Current situation is the reason why I decided to open my own foundry What tendencies do you see happening in the world of Cyrillic type and have the library, that I can manage myself: control the updates, and graphic design? What’s changing? have an opportunity to design Latin and Cyrillic from scratch, instead of just adding one system to another. This way the font ends up being Oh, tendencies can be a whole separate topic! But in general I’m more organic. noticing a “boom” in type design industry, because a lot of new type editors have appeared, and they have become more affordable. As I remember, about ten years ago it was a real hassle to find Therefore more people started designing typefaces. Not necessarily a foreign typeface that included Cyrillic family. Has the situation for big projects, but also for small tasks. For example, drawing logos, changed? Do Western foundries design more typefaces, which since it’s much more convenient to do directly in a type editor. include Cyrillic? When I started designing type about 10 years ago, we only had FontLab. Today we have RoboFont, Glyphs and many other editors. Yes, a lot more. I believe all big type foundries today design Cyrillic. They come in a different price range, some are even free. Everyone In my opinion, this is due the growing number of Cyrillic colleagues can choose what they prefer and not be stuck with one program. that they can reach out for help. Cyrillic designers are gaining more I think it’s great, because it creates competition and helps the indus- and more credibility and their opinions and suggestions are getting try to evolve. heard. Before, there was this stigma about Eastern European market The development of type design area also stimulates the that fonts are only being stolen and distributed illegally. But now, with emergence of new names. Before, everyone who was designing type- an active establishment of serious Cyrillic type foundries, Western faces knew each other or at least heard of each other. Now there are studios see that making business and earning money is possible. so many people that it’s impossible to know everyone. So often A lot of IT-companies, which enter the international market, I stumble upon a new studio or online type store and think: “Who are eventually find themselves in need of expanding their chosen type- these people? I’ve never heard of them.” face with Cyrillic and other scripts. This also gives an opportunity to Also new models of licensing and type distribution are ap- develop additional Cyrillic families. ² Future Fonts is pearing. For example, such platforms as Future Fonts ², that allow a platform for Speaking of collaboration between Western and Eastern studios, selling typefaces new young designers to upload their fresh unfinished projects. We that are still in didn’t have things like this before. do they usually develop typefaces on their own and consult Cyrillic development Cyrillic type design is a part of international community and designers in the process? Or do they hire Cyrillic specialists to fully we prettymuch follow the same tendencies. Probably the major dif- manage the development of Cyrillic part? ference between Latin and Cyrillic type markets, is that we are still in need of some very basic things. Latin already has an extensive base There are several strategies. From my personal experience, when of fonts, in different styles and weights, and customers can choose the studio meets me for the first time, they usually prefer to work whatever they want. Although the number of new Cyrillic typefaces with me as a consultant, developing the font themselves and follow- is growing, it’s still incomparable with Latin. And although the qual- ing my reviews. Later on, especially for big orders, they were hiring ity is also improving, I think, our major problem is that we develop me to work on Cyrillic on my own. I think both ways are important.

96 97 Each script system has its own rhythm, and it’s rather an advantage than disadvantage. Designers should learn to use that.

I even prefer consulting more, because when designers never not considered, one can mention that Russian text and headlines worked with Cyrillic before, they think that it will take them about a are usually much longer than English. So designer must think week to work on it. And when I start explaining them the specifics, how to adapt the layout, leading, tracking in order to keep the same they learn from their own experience that it’s not that easy of a pro- hierarchy with words, that are twice longer.We also have small cess. Thus they understand and appreciate my work more. However, descending elements in letters like Ц and Д. In Latin graphic de- when they don’t have this experience and outsource the develop- signers often set the text very tight, which is not possible with ment of Cyrillic to another designer, they will be surprised to learn Cyrillic. Unless it’s some kind of radical concept, one should encom- how long it takes and how much money it costs. pass the required leading, and shouldn’t try to reduce or cut off I’ve been consulting for 6 years now and I can definitely see these elements. the improvement in studios’ attitude. Now they know approximately how long it might take and inform their clients. However, I still stum- You have studied abroad. Do you know if Western universities ble upon the cases, when big companies design their identities and teach their students about other script systems than Latin? interfaces only taking into consideration Latin typography. And when they expand their market, they try to order additional script families. They are trying to. Type designers are in general more curious about They don’t understand that those will take years to design! There- other script systems and know a lot more about them than others. fore, I think this is a period in time, when it’s extremely important for There is an English university Reading, that specialises on rare and graphic designers to learn as much as possible about different script extinct scripts. Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, focuses on Latin, systems, and consider their specifics at the beginning of the project, but they have small blocks dedicated to other scripts. not at the end. Graphic designers, on the other hand, have problems with this. They look at great references with Latin typography and try to What other knowledge do foreign designers require in order to work use the same typefaces and and tricks, but turns out that it doesn’t with Cyrillic? Do they need to understand the language? work. I think, graphic designers should be given the assignments of working with different languages, and have a chance to con- Knowing the language is not important. Designer must be attentive sult someone about it. Teachers must show not only Latin or Cyril- to details. Speaking about the most obvious differences, that are often lic examples, but also Japanese, Arabic and others. Because each

98 99 script system has its own rhythm, and it’s rather an advantage than disadvantage. Designers should learn to use that. It’s important to teach to recognise and respect other scripts. If you don’t know how to work with a certain script, go and consult someone. Often people start working on projects without having any sufficient knowledge in the topic.

Why is it important for graphic designer to use good quality Cyillic typefaces? Besides some basic things like legibility, visual balance, can the choice of badly designed typeface have a cultural impact of the message?

No, I don’t think so. If it’s readable it’s readable. It’s more of a ques- tion… if we, as designers, want our work to be respected, we should also respect the work of our colleagues. I often notice, that some type festivals in Ukraine or Russia use, for example, Swiss typefaces in their advertisement. That’s great, but if you organise a design re- lated event, wouldn’t it be more logical to pick and support the type- face of a local designer? Give them a chance to show themselves. I think that’s important. This is our social duty. If you’re doing a project with a language that you don’t know, try to research local foundries, what they offer. Today we have all the possibilities to find information. For instance, if you’re working with Bulgarian language, find out what are the specificsf o their typography. You might notice that they have some special letterforms, and this information would be useful in the search of typefaces.

Electric Red Studio, poster for Beat Weekend Film Festival using typeface CoFo Sans, designed by Maria Doreuli, 2020

100 101 Pierre Jeanneau, posters for Théâtre de Belleville using Chimera typeface designed by Maria Doreuli, 2018

Anna-Maria Kandales-Vorobeva, cover for “1/2” magazine using Chimera typeface designed by Maria Doreuli, 2015

Logo for digital studio White Russian, supervised by Maria Doreuli, 2019

Electric Red Studio, promo posters for Flic Flac typeface developed Logo for animation studio Petrick, by Maria Doreuli, 2020 supervised by Maria Doreuli, 2019 Colophon

Bachelor thesis project by Iana Vekshyna Advisors Alexander Tibus, Ben Wittner Copy editing Sharmila Sandrasegar

Literature refernces Wittner, Ben, and Sascha Thoma. Bi-Scriptual. Sulgen: Niggli, 2019. Gordon, Jurij. Книга про буквы от А до Я. Moscow: Izdat. Studii Artemija Lebedeva, 2006. Yukechev, Eugene and Rustam Gabbasov. Cyrillic Type Travel Book Commented. Moscow: Schrift Publishers. 2019

Website refernces typejournal.ru type.today arzamas.academy

Typefaces Neue Haas Unica Grafier PT Mono Spectral Kazimir

Paper Munken Lynx Rough 100 g/m²

Edition 10 copies