Cyrillics: Fundamentals

Cyrillics Pt1—Theory: 2 days

October 2nd and 16th: 6-9pm CET (Central European Time)
(Start times: 9am San Francisco, 12pm New York, 5pm London, 6pm Paris/Berlin, 7pm Sofia)

The first part of the workshop will be lecture based. This is a great opportunity for designers who want to know more about the context and logic behind the Cyrillic shapes, and also a great starting place for those who have never drawn Cyrillic before.

Objectives:
• Get to know the script’s history, development and contemporary state: you need some context to the design principles that define Cyrillic;
• Understand the basic structure of Cyrillic letterforms: we will offer a structured system on how to approach designing Cyrillic letterforms logically;
• We’ll give you examples of the most common mistakes and how to avoid them;
• We’ll cover different character sets & languages;

Cyrillics Pt 2—Practice: 4 days

October 30th, November 6th, 20th and December 4th: 6-9pm CET (Central European Time)
(Start times: 9am San Francisco, 12pm New York, 5pm London, 6pm Paris/Berlin, 7pm Sofia)

You will develop a Cyrillic extension to an existing Latin typeface and we will have a series of group and individual reviews to help you improve it.

What’s included:
• Individual tutorials for your typeface, which will help you improve your design;
• We do tutorials in groups, so you are also exposed to other designs to get in-depth understanding of different styles;
• A detailed look at some of the more complex Cyrillic shapes;
• Expert tips and tricks to ease your Cyrillic design workflow;
• Bulgarian and Serbina localised forms;
• Extended Cyrillic;

We recommend taking the two parts of the workshop together as a full programme. However, you can also choose to take them individually.

Part One is lecture based. We will go through all letterforms of Basic Cyrillic and show you how to draw them, outline common mistakes, help you understand the logic behind all Cyrillic letterforms.
Part Two is practice and review based. It is about bringing the knowledge from Part One into your own project. And going into detail.

Requirements:
There will be homework. You will need knowledge of any font editing software and a Latin typeface to expand to Cyrillic. We meet in Zoom. Live attendance is highly reccommended to get the most of the workshop.

About us:
Maria Doreuli is the founder of an independent studio Contrast Foundry. In 2018, craving for new challenges, she relocated to California. Focusing on type design, Maria believes in the power of emotion and working with passion. She’s open to new opportunities and aims to experiment more to find unexpected forms of expression.

Krista Radoeva is an independent typeface designer, based in Sofia, Bulgaria. She specialises in custom type and makes fonts in Latin, Cyrillic and Greek. For 5 years she worked for Fontsmith in London. Since 2020 she’s been freelancing for different foundries and design agencies, teaching and working towards setting up her own studio.

Maria and Krista met while studying MA Type and Media in The Hague and have been collaborating ever since. They have given talks, lectures and workshops on Cyrillic all over the world. They’ve designed numerous Cyrillic typefaces and are also helping improve the quality of Cyrillic through consulting and teaching.

If you have any questions, email us at info@cyrillicsly.com