In May, we can’t help but pay attention to letters and fonts. That’s why we’ll introduce you to four wonderful artists who work in the field of type. We’ll start with…
Ani Petrova
Date and place of birth: February 12, 1988, Sofia
Education:
2012 – 2014 Master’s degree in the Department of “Book, Illustration and Printed Graphics”, “Master’s Program – Font”, National Academy of Arts, Sofia
2008 – 2012 Bachelor’s degree in the Department of “Book, Illustration and Printed Graphics”, National Academy of Arts, Sofia
2002 -2007 National School of Fine Arts “Ilia Petrov”, major: “Graphics”
Professional experience:
I have been working in the field of typography for 4 years. I am currently working with the font studio Lettersoup, where in addition to custom fonts I have the opportunity to create my own original fonts. In addition, together with my colleague Botyo Nikolchev, I also work on projects for Monotype. I have recently become a doctoral student at the Academy of Arts, where I am about to write a dissertation on the topic: "Emergence, development and establishment of the modern Bulgarian form of the Cyrillic alphabet".
Exhibitions and events:
2013 New Bulgarian Typography - graphic design exhibition; part of the program of the international festival of design and visual culture Sofia Design Week
2014 Leipzig Book Fair
2016 Typoclass training: Let's make a font in Glyphs
2016 The Bulgarian School of Type Art - Exhibition on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Prof. Vasil Yonchev
2016 Lecturer at the Raster Minds conference on graphic design and typography, Varna
2017 Interview for Tipofest with presentation of the font Cardinal
2018 Interview for Tipofest with presentation of the font Vocal
2018 Member of the "Union of Bulgarian Artists"
What does it actually mean that you "deal with fonts"?
I am often asked this question... and I answer with "I make letters". In addition to making fonts according to our own ideas for a specific purpose, we also make custom fonts or further developments of already created ones. For example, we supplement the characters necessary for a given language system that are missing or we add certain mathematical, punctuation marks or symbols that are missing for the specific purpose of the client.
* See footage of the work process at the end of the article
Is there a difference between a letter and a font?
A letter can be considered an independent sign, but a font cannot. It is a collection of letters and characters that are interconnected. A letter is an independent grapheme carrying the character, information, style, strength, proportion and feeling of the entire font. It is no coincidence that we have 2-3 basic letters that are decisive at the beginning of each project, the entire font picture depends on them.
Favorite font: I think that everyone who knows me well has heard many times what my favorite font is. This is Mallory by Tobias Frere-Jones! This font respects and inspires me.
Is a font an illustration?
Oh, yes! The font, besides being something we practically cannot do without, is also, as I often like to say, a special kind of art… Letters are not just geometry through which to express ourselves, they are a drawing, rhythm, harmony, aesthetics, style, era. Making a font is not a simple task, above all, the question is what you are making it for, where you intend it to be, or what exactly you will express or depict through it. With proper and precise use, the font can replace illustration, as long as all its expressive means are used in the right place, then the impact on the reader could be the same as that achieved through illustration.
What font do you dream of “making in Cyrillic”?
In fact, I have already managed to realize such a dream. Recently, Botyo and I had the opportunity to work on a Monotype font, we created a modern Bulgarian form of the Cyrillic alphabet of the Neue Frutiger font. Besides being incredibly excited while working on it, this font also taught me a lot of subtleties in the construction of letter designs. For me, every such project is a step up and I still can't believe that I have the opportunity to work on such famous and masterfully made fonts.
What do people most often NOT know about fonts?
Quite often I encounter people who ask me the question: "So what do you make fonts for, when there is enough of it?.." or "Is this a job, this is the first time I've heard of such a profession?" and similar questions, which sometimes I don't even know how to answer.
Of course, there are also people who are in design circles and are much more aware, but they also often underestimate our work. For example, about how long it takes to create a font. People think that we just make letters and I've even been told "Come on, add these characters, how much is it..." without me having the opportunity to explain that these characters will take me a few more months of work. In addition to taking a lot of time, and sometimes years, creating a font also requires a lot of patience, perseverance and brutal persistence. It's definitely not for everyone, I would even say that we font designers are quite strange birds, often even difficult to understand.
Website: https://www.lettersoup.de
Facebook: lettersoup
Instagram: lettersoup_type_foundry
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