A new Art Deco, and the hunt for Broadway Greek/Cyrillic

Tofu Type Foundry
Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 37
in Type Design Critiques
I'm working on a typeface inspired by Broadway and Bifur. Both these classics have some lovely design qualities that I wanted to see combined: Bifur’s unweilding geometric discipline married with Broadway’s high contrast and (more) legible letterforms. I was also curious to see how far the contrast could be pushed. For the sake of simplicity this has remained an all caps typeface.

I could see this being used anywhere from restaurant signage to cocktail menus. It’s not meant for paragraphs of text. A lower contrast companion may be helpful, but I don't want the design to lose its personality. Here are a couple glyphs that show what I mean.

As an experiment, I've testing how the letterforms work when applied to other scripts—Cyrillic and Greek. I have zero experience designing for these scripts though so the design is likely full of flaws. While looking for reference of Bifur and Broadway I couldn't locate any signs that they ever received a Greek or Cyrillic expansion. Does anyone know otherwise? It seems overall that non-Latin scripts have very little when it comes to this type style.
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  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,227
    edited October 13
    I’m not familiar with Greek or Cyrillic in this specific style, but there are definitely examples of Art Deco Cyrillic lettering and typography. Look for e.g. Russian film posters of the period.

  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 798
    The typically stressed part of N is actually the diagonal (missed by many).
    Your cyrillic Ц is incomplete.
    Greek is, in this case, the most tricky, especially letters with syncopic stress pattern (Ξ, Σ). A very interesting task though. (I once did an Art Deco Greek with much pleasure).

  • Tural Alisoy
    Tural Alisoy Posts: 52
    I tried to explain my thoughts in the attached file.
    deco.pdf 701.8K
  • Tofu Type Foundry
    Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 37
    John Hudson said:
    I’m not familiar with Greek or Cyrillic in this specific style, but there are definitely examples of Art Deco Cyrillic lettering and typography. Look for e.g. Russian film posters of the period.

    Thanks for the recommendation @John Hudson! I've been looking into old posters now and stumbled across a Russian book cover for Art Deco: Flights of Artistic Fantasy by Suzanne A. Sternow. It appears to feature Broadway with Cyrillic characters—but this could just be a graphic designer modifying the Latin to their needs.



    Nonetheless, I though you might enjoy some of the other typefaces from various sources. The Й in the last poster is especially creative.


  • Tofu Type Foundry
    Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 37
    Andreas Stötzner said:
    The typically stressed part of N is actually the diagonal (missed by many).
    Your cyrillic Ц is incomplete.
    Greek is, in this case, the most tricky, especially letters with syncopic stress pattern (Ξ, Σ). A very interesting task though. (I once did an Art Deco Greek with much pleasure).

    @Andreas Stötzner Great catch on the /Ц! I initially gave the /N reverse contrast because I was trying to emulate the "skyscraper feeling" of Plaza’s /N but I don't think it works as well here. I've make a couple variations of the /N but am thinking of ditching the last two in the PDF.

    Can you explain what a syncopic stress pattern is? I tried looking it up but couldn't find information. The Greek definitely is difficult though. While looking through Parachute’s typefaces I found a unique solution for /Ξ they use in Marlet Titling. It’s got me wondering if something similar would work here…



    And I must say Artemis Sans is classy! Love the rhythm in the letterforms.

    @Tural Alisoy Those notes were extremely helpful, thanks for sharing! Here's a quick breakdown of the revisions I made:
    • Refined /Д/П/К/Ж/И/Й/Ы/Б/Ш/Щ/Ч/Ю and /brevecomb-cy based on your suggestions
    • Added missing “tooth” on /Ц and corrected contrast
    • Localized forms for Bulgarian /Д/П/Ф/И/Й
    • Added stylistic set for "stacked" /Ы, "thick centre" /Њ, and "flat-sided" /Ћ/Ђ (just for fun)
    • New additions of /Љ/Њ/Ћ/Ђ/Џ/Ґ
    I'm wondering if /Л should be localized for Bulgarian too? Glyphs app automatically has a localized variant for it. Also, should the Latin breve follow the Cyrillic and be a similar width? Or does Cyrillic require a wider form?
  • Tural Alisoy
    Tural Alisoy Posts: 52
    @Tofu Type Foundry everything looks good. Regarding the last two points @Igor Petrovic you should check out this link written by It will be useful for you. Additionally, I want you to know that you need to localize the letter Л for Bulgarian. But there is also such a thing, the Bulgarian version Л and Д are used in Russian, Ukrainian and other Cyrillic alphabets, but not use vice versa. Bulgarians only use the letter Л and Д, similar to a triangular shape. Latin breve is different from brevecomb-cy. brevecomb-cy should be relatively wide.
  • Igor Petrovic
    Igor Petrovic Posts: 307
    Interesting work, it builds a nice rhythm on the screen.

    Tural is right about К and Ж relation. But then, maybe it would be better to have both of them with high waist, similar to the K on Art Deco: Flights of Artistic Fantasy cover. You already have the midline moved up on B, E, and other letters. But then again, this is a highly conceptual typeface, so it is by preference.

    Also, since classic Л (not triangular) has no ball or serif at the left branch terminal, maybe a more pronounced curve would look good. Not the whole branch, let's say its bottom lower third. 

    As per diacritics, because of the maximum contrast, I feel they are a bit off the visual center. I would try to move them to the right-hand side a bit.
  • Tofu Type Foundry
    Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 37
    Tural Alisoy said:
    @Tofu Type Foundry everything looks good. Regarding the last two points @Igor Petrovic you should check out this link written by It will be useful for you. Additionally, I want you to know that you need to localize the letter Л for Bulgarian. But there is also such a thing, the Bulgarian version Л and Д are used in Russian, Ukrainian and other Cyrillic alphabets, but not use vice versa. Bulgarians only use the letter Л and Д, similar to a triangular shape. Latin breve is different from brevecomb-cy. brevecomb-cy should be relatively wide.

    I understand what happened now, I accidentally localized /П instead of /Л for the Bulgarian. Glyphs automatically added an empty localized character for /Л because it knew what I didn't. :)

    Thanks for clarifying how wide the brevecomb-cy should be. The latin breve needs some tweaking too. 

  • Tofu Type Foundry
    Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 37
    Igor Petrovic said:
    Interesting work, it builds a nice rhythm on the screen.

    Tural is right about К and Ж relation. But then, maybe it would be better to have both of them with high waist, similar to the K on Art Deco: Flights of Artistic Fantasy cover. You already have the midline moved up on B, E, and other letters. But then again, this is a highly conceptual typeface, so it is by preference.

    Also, since classic Л (not triangular) has no ball or serif at the left branch terminal, maybe a more pronounced curve would look good. Not the whole branch, let's say its bottom lower third. 

    As per diacritics, because of the maximum contrast, I feel they are a bit off the visual center. I would try to move them to the right-hand side a bit.

    Thank for the compliment on the rhythm! In additions to Tural’s feedback, your webpage has been a very helpful guide. I appreciate you taking the time to write that article.

    When starting this typeface I gave the Latin /K a high waist. But after introducing the /R it switched to the low waist solution you see now. The /R needed more space for the bowl than the leg and I figured the /K should be similar in design. I don’t mind the Cyrillic /К and /Ж having low waists, but I’m also not a native speaker so it’s hard to judge properly. A simple solution would be to create a stylistic set with high waist characters so users can choose at their discretion.


    Interestingly, both Broadway and its spiritual successor Broadacre have different waist heights for /R and /K. Sadly there’s no Cyrillic support so we can’t see how they handled /К and /Ж.

    ——

    I’ll play around with the “classic Л” and add a more pronounced curve. I know the leg is often tricky to get right so I didn’t try anything too crazy with the design. The advice I read was to avoid creating a “hockey stick” where all the curve is right at the bottom.

    Good call on the diacritics, they do feel slightly off-centre!

  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,739
    edited October 26
    There’s a version of Broadway called AZ Highway on Paratype’s site which includes cyrillic: https://www.paratype.com/fonts/az/az-highway/regular
  • Tofu Type Foundry
    Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 37
    Mark Simonson said:
    There’s a version of Broadway called AZ Highway on Paratype’s site which includes cyrillic: https://www.paratype.com/fonts/az/az-highway/regular
    Great find Mark!
  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,739
    edited October 28
    The Cyrillic characters in fonts sold by Paratype should be up to the standards of the Cyrillic-using market. I find it’s a good place to check when I’m not sure. FWIW, Alexandra Korolkova of Paratype was a consultant on the Cyrillic characters in my Proxima Nova.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,896
    edited October 28
    +1, I too use Paratype catalogs as a resource for that purpose! Great stuff, super helpful.

    Also, Maxim Zhukov consulted on Cyrillic for my Hypatia Sans back in the day, and nowadays I have been collaborating with Vassil Kateliev, who did the Cyrillic-specific design for Science Gothic, due to release in a few weeks.
  • Tofu Type Foundry
    Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 37
    Craig Eliason said:
    Different waist heights are not uncommon in "high-waisted" (or should we say "unconventionally waisted") designs. The /K, but also the /H, /E, /F, etc. may be high but the /R, and also the /A, /P, etc. can be low. Essentially you might think of the design principle not being about waist altitude but about exaggerated bowl/counter sizes.
    This makes a lot of sense and actually verbalizes the rules I was following without realizing it. Going to save this tidbit for future reference!
  • Tofu Type Foundry
    Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 37
    My S is quite unique, which has led to some of the currency symbols having unorthodox construction too. I have no idea if native readers will be able to identify the hryvnia, for example, or if it violates any design rules I’m not aware of.

    Interestingly, AZ HighWay from Paratype seems to lack a lot of basic currency symbols that I’d expect it to support—such as the ruble. Is that not required for a font to "support Russian"?


    [CURRENCIES: $¢¤₫€₴₺₽£₸₮¥]
  • jeremy tribby
    jeremy tribby Posts: 251
    it was probably designed before the introduction of the ruble symbol in 2013/2014
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,227
    I like what you have done with the hryvnia symbol, but wonder why you treated it differently from the other double-barred currency symbols?
  • Tofu Type Foundry
    Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 37
    edited December 8
    jeremy tribby said:
    it was probably designed before the introduction of the ruble symbol in 2013/2014
    I didn’t realize the ruble was only added to unicode recently! Also, just found on their own page that it states the typeface was designed some time between 1990–1995:
    Шрифт разработан в фирме Az-Zet в 1990-1995 (дизайнер Л.Силкин) по мотивам шрифта Broadway (дизайнер М.Бентон, ATF,  1928).
  • Tofu Type Foundry
    Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 37
    John Hudson said:
    I like what you have done with the hryvnia symbol, but wonder why you treated it differently from the other double-barred currency symbols?
    By "different treatment" are you referring to the gap between the two horizontal bars?
  • Paul Hanslow
    Paul Hanslow Posts: 175
    Tofu Type Foundry said:
    John Hudson said:
    I like what you have done with the hryvnia symbol, but wonder why you treated it differently from the other double-barred currency symbols?
    By "different treatment" are you referring to the gap between the two horizontal bars?
    yes, this is most probably what @John Hudson is referring to.
  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 798
    I find the italic S and the reverse-italic Gryvnia distracting.

    (the base glyph of Gryvnia is a cyrillic script г.)
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,227
    (the base glyph of Gryvnia is a cyrillic script г.)
    It is, but in Ukrainian the letter Г is pronounced as [ɦ] so Hryvnia is a better transcription than Gryvnia, which would follow Russian pronunciation.
  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 798
    John Hudson said:
    (the base glyph of Gryvnia is a cyrillic script г.)
    … so Hryvnia is a better transcription than Gryvnia, …
    no, it is not. It is a naïve phonetistic approach which ignores the fact that on the level of the script system the Latin g is the obvious and proper equivalent of the Cyrillic г.
    The Latin g can stand for a variety of sounds, even within one single language. The same with the Cyrillic г. To adjust a transliteration one-sided to sounds/phonetics – is overly simplistic.
    In German Griwna and in English Grivna are long-established terms for the original measurement unit of the Kievan Rus, relating back to the 11th century. In historic Poland that unit was known as Grzywna. There you go.
    The benefit of cutting those orthographic relations is zero, because no one expects an Englishman or a German or an Italian to sound just like an Ukraïnian speaker.






  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,227
    edited December 8
    It is a naïve phonetistic approach which ignores the fact that on the level of the script system the Latin g is the obvious and proper equivalent of the Cyrillic г.
    That is transliteration, which is a lousy method of mapping anything other than isolated characters of a script, independent of their use in writing systems. It is not useful for representing words in a given language.

    There is no such thing as a ‘script system’ when it comes to transcription of words in a specific language. There are only writing systems, which is the application of the set of soundless characters of a script to the sounds of a particular language. Assigning sounds to the characters at the script level instead of characters to sounds at the writing system level always means privileging one language over another, or one historical state of one language over another.

    There is a longstanding tradition of Г being differently transcribed depending on the pronunciation of the letter in different languages. Гривня is a modern Ukrainian word for the Ukrainian national currency. It should be transcribed to reflect how it is pronounced in Ukrainian, especially since Ukrainian has a different character for [ɡ]. How the letter Г has been pronounced for related words in other languages is irrelevant.
    To adjust a transliteration one-sided to sounds/phonetics – is overly simplistic.
    On the contrary, I would say that transliteration—character-to-character at the script level—is overly simplistic, which is why I prefer transcription, which is messier but more useful.

    It is also less likely to offend or hurt. Transliterating Г as G repeats the imposition of Russian phonology onto the Ukrainian alphabet during the Soviet era, when use of Ґ was suppressed as one of the measures to erase the distinctive identity of the Ukrainian language and people.
  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 798
    In general every-day language, both written and spoken, usually translations of external words are applied, not transcriptions. Transcription has its place in liguistics. To force the replacement of an existing translation (Grivna) by a new transcription is a technocratic attempt to re-educate people and tell them “your language is wrong”. We have far too many of these attempts nowadays.
    If the use of phonetic transcriptions were to be preferred over translations, than you english speakers please use Doytshlund instead of Germany from now on; we on the other hand would have to introduce Ingländ instead of England (which sounds different in German speech, of course). You see, this is ridiculous – and such is hryvnia or hrywnja. For me as a German this spelling is plain unspeakable. 
    Another example: every German is a Saksan to Finnish people (“Saxon”), no Bavarian or Rhinelanders have ever complained about this. Therefore, the reasoning of a possible offense of Ukraïnians because their own pronunciation is ‘different from Russian’ does not meet the case. As much as I sympathize with Ukraïne in these days, I will not change my language everytime another warlord is going crazy.


  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,227
    I certainly don’t expect you to change your language, Andreas. Perhaps it is simplest to point out, since we’re having this discussion in English, that hryvnia is the standard English name for the Ukrainian currency, and the H transcription is also attested in its international currency code, UAH.
  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 798
    John Hudson said:
    … hryvnia is the standard English name for the Ukrainian currency, and the H transcription is also attested in its international currency code, UAH.
    … that doesn’t make anything better or more convincing. Nor do I believe that any english speaker brings hryvnia over his tongue without accident.

  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,227
    Apologies to @Tofu Type Foundry for diversion. I’ve nothing to add.
  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 798
    sorry from my side, too.

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