Producing the Best Cyrillic

ticket holders can have a 10% discount on this workshop. Write to [email protected] for the promo-code to take advantage of this offer before you pay.

In this workshop, Ilya will guide you through the history and contemporary use of Cyrillic type, exploring different Cyrillic-based languages and their unique typographic needs. In the first part, you’ll gain a solid understanding of Cyrillic’s historical background and design principles. In the second part, you’ll apply this knowledge by extending an existing Latin font with your first Cyrillic letterforms.

The workshop is designed to be mostly self-paced and adapted to your skill level. You’ll work digitally on your laptop using your preferred software, with guidance and feedback throughout the process. By the end of the three days, you will have completed your first Cyrillic typeface style.

Alongside hands-on work, the workshop includes a few lectures—mainly on the history of Cyrillic—as well as small exercises to help you grasp the nuances of Cyrillic letterforms.

Learning Goals

• Understand the historical background of Cyrillic.
• Develop high-quality Cyrillic letterforms for an existing Latin font.
• Expand your typographic knowledge and skills.

This course is ideal for anyone eager to explore typography beyond the Latin script. Since Cyrillic is the closest writing system to Latin from a graphical perspective, learning to design Cyrillic letterforms is a valuable and rewarding opportunity. Prior knowledge of typeface design is strongly recommended.

Required Materials

For this workshop, you will need a laptop with your preferred font editing software — such as Glyphs, RoboFont, or FontLab. Additionally, having some sketching materials — pencils, pens, or markers — would be great for initial drawing.

About the instructor:

Ilya Ruderman is a type and graphic designer, educator, and Cyrillic consultant based in Barcelona. He graduated from the Moscow State University of Printing Arts (2002) and earned an MA in Type Design from the Type & Media program at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (2005).

Throughout his career, Ilya has worked with prominent media outlets, including Kommersant, Afisha, Moskovskiye Novosti, and Bolshoy Gorod. He has also served as art director for Afisha city guidebooks and RIA Novosti. From 2007 to 2015, he curated the Type & Typography course at the British Higher School of Art and Design in Moscow.

Since 2008, Ilya has been an active consultant on Cyrillic type design. In 2014, he co-founded CSTM Fonts with Yury Ostromentsky, followed by the opening of the type.today store in 2016, and Tomorrow Type in 2019.

Host or Publisher Typographics Festival