The month of May is symbolically dedicated to letters. This year we will introduce you to four artists who work in the field of calligraphy and handwritten text.
Kostadin Kokalanov
Education: Secondary, two interrupted higher education degrees, a third in progress.
Professional experience: All types of graphic design and visual communication over the past 12-14 years for clients of various scales and industries.
Exhibitions/projects/awards:
2012 – Hand to Type: Scripts, Hand-Lettering and Calligraphy / gestalten.com / publication
2013 – Sofia Design Week / exhibition “New Bulgarian Typography” / curator Kiril Zlatkov
2015 – NIGHT Plovdiv / exhibition KKIIVV / together with Ilian Iliev / gallery
“Elastics”
2016 – 120 Years of Bulgarian Art / publication
2018 – exhibition “Sign & Dragon” / together with Albena Limoni / gallery “Intro”, Sofia
2018 – exhibition “Bulgarian Design Review 2018” / Melba Festival / UniCredit Studio, Sofia
What does it actually mean to be involved in calligraphy? I write text with different tools to achieve a certain character of the graphics.
Is there a difference between “font” and “calligraphy”? Definitely. Calligraphy is an emotional and spontaneous experience. The result can be completely abstract. When you prepare a calligraphic composition, you make decisions about this set of characters in a certain order, while when constructing a typeface, you aim for a balance between the characters in any type combination. These are just a few small details. The font could have a tangible calligraphic beginning, but it could also be a rich family with many strokes that is designed for long typeset text. Calligraphy is more of a spontaneous gesture, typography is more of a logical plan.
Is calligraphy an illustration? It could be. In any case, the character of the letters indicates some state that communicates with the viewer. There are also more literal examples such as calligrams, where a specific image is generated from written text.
What do you dream of writing/depicting/illustrating through calligraphy? In several projects I am already trying to illustrate sound through written text. I have long been excited by the development of visual arts technologies and the possibilities that a programmed environment can generate graphics. In this direction are my wishes for future implementations, as well as large-scale hand-made inscriptions.
What do people most often NOT know about calligraphy? And if it is interesting? I'm not sure what it would be. It is much more impressive to watch it happen than to see the static final result.
Favorite calligraphic examples: Not only calligraphers, but different types of letter artists: Rudolph Koch, Herman Zapf, John Stevens, Boris Angelushev (headers and text compositions), Stefan Kanchev with his original typographic solutions, Giuliano Bocchi, Luca Barcelona, Herb Lubalin, OhNo Type and many others.
Website: https://www.instagram.com/kostadin_kokalanov/
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