The Mysteries of Cyrillic
10 July 2002
Maxim Zhukov, typographic coordinator to the United Nations, led a fun- and fact-filled tour of the Cyrillic script for a standing-room only gathering in the exhibition hall of the Grolier Club.
From its beginnings as an evangelical tool devised by Sts Cyril and Methodius to digital communication, Cyrillic has gone through several reforms:
- its invention, using the Byzantine Greek forms as models;
- the reforms begun by Peter the Great, attempting to bring to the script some elements of the Western Latin tradition;
- the 1918 revolution, enacting reforms first proposed by Tsar Nikolaus;
- the modern era, moving into the inclusiveness of Unicode and electronic text.
Maxim also highlighted the many design points that Cyrillic has that make it so different from Latin:
- the minuscule's high percentages of vertical stems, reflected and doubled forms, and 90° angles;
- the minuscule's low percentages of ascenders and descenders, right-facing letters, and rounded forms.
Noted were the design hazards of the characteristic letters ke, zhe, and ya, whose difficult joins at their stems pose a dilemma to designers: should the shapes follow the Latin forms and link similarly close to the stems, or take the "natural" tack of being moved away from the stem, thereby avoiding the spottiness caused by too many lines meeting?
Also touched were the similarities required in the "feet" of de, tse, tze, shcha to the serifs of Latin F and T, and the dissimilarity needed of the Ze and numeral 3.
More recent developments in Cyrillic were noted, from such designers as Galinia Balnikov, Vasil Lazurski, Solomon Tellingater; and from the ITC Cyrillic series that Maxim consulted on.
Cyrillic is still evolving, if carefully and, as most type does, conservatively. A strong understanding of the history and use of Cyrillic is essential to developing new and useful typefaces, whether for text or display. Thanks to Maxim, Cyrillic type will be getting better and better.
Gary Munch 2002-07-12
Event Announcement :
The Mysteries of Cyrillic
Sponsored by The Society of Scribes, The Grolier Club, and Type Directors Club