Understanding Cyrillic type in visual communication: an approach to define the basics of Cyrillic script for non-native graphic designers

Abstract

This thesis specifically focuses on the rules, peculiarities and history of Cyrillic type. Foreign scripts might look alien and even somewhat intimidating at first sight, however Cyrillic is very close to Latin in terms of origin, development and typographic rules. 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 in modern Cyrillic fonts have identical letterforms in Latin. [...] The topic of the thesis is aimed at readers, who are not native to Cyrillic script, and don't possess the knowledge of reading and speaking Russian or other Cyrillic-based languages. On the initial stages a preliminary research was conducted in order to understand how non-native graphic designers perceive Cyrillic script, and to identify the possible approaches of explaining the topic. Short interviews with 5 respondents (graphic designers from 5 different countries, non-native to Cyrillic script) have shown, that interviewees perceive Cyrillic characters as symbols with deep history and a requirement of understanding the details in order to work with them. Inability to read the text was mentioned as one of the major obstacles in working with the script. Respondents have also mentioned that Cyrillic script visually reminds Latin. (Appendix 9.1, page 66) Therefore it was decided to base the explanation of the topic on the comparison of Cyrillic and Latin type, as the closest by origin and visual characteristics, and most common script system in graphic design field. Research also contains a table of Russian alphabet with approximate English phonetic equivalents (page 7), which might help the non-native audience to acquire the primary skills of reading Cyrillic text. In the 'Letters' chapter the characters of Russian alphabet are either structurally compared to the corresponding Latin characters or demonstrate, how Cyrillic characters can be created out of Latin ones by the method of type cyrillization. The aim of this approach is to not only teach graphic designers to identify good 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 Russia and Ukraine (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.