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Botio Nikoltchev

Botjo Nikoltchev, b. 1978, Sofia, Bulgaria. Botio studied graphic and type design in Potsdam. He is living and working as a freelance designer in Berlin. He studied communication design at the University of Applied Science Potsdam and took type design classes with Luc(as) de Groot. After his studies Botio worked with Ole Schäfer (Primetype) on the Cyrillic characters of PTL Manual, PTL Manual Mono and PTL Notes. Since 2010 he has been collaborating with Ralph du Carrois and Erik Spiekermann as type designer and art director at Carrois Type Design, focusing on Cyrillic, Greek and Arabic language extensions and CI projects. In 2014, he set up the commercial typefoundry Lettersoup.

Web:
Typefaces: Sofia Sans, Milka, Milka Free, Ropa Mix Pro, Ropa Soft Pro, Ropa Sans Pro, Quasimoda
More… Botio Nikoltchev

In this article I would like to describe the differences between the Bulgarian and Russian Cyrillic. Then I will list the characters you have to include in your fonts if you like to make Bulgarian Cyrillic and the different ways you can make it work with the Open Type features. Lets start with which Letters are different between Russian and Bulgarian Cyrillic. I will specify them for both Sans and Serif typefaces.

.loclBGR for Grotesque Typefaces

Russian Cyrillic

Bulgarian Modern Cyrillic Script

The red characters are in Russian style and the orange ones in Bulgarian. Please do not forget to include the letters Ѝ and ѝ letter. These characters are needed in the Bulgarian language. The following characters are all you have to include for loclBGR in your Sans Fonts. Some of the glyphs don’t have to be redesigned in Italics.

In case you are using SAFARI please see this POP-UP window or follow this LINK.

  Д (uni0414) is optional
  Ѝ (uni040D)
  Л (uni041B)
  Ф (uni0424) is optional

  в (uni0432)
  г (uni0433)
  д (uni0434)
  ж (uni0436)
  з (uni0437)
  и (uni0438) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic 
  й (uni0439) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic 
  ѝ (uni045D) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic 
  к (uni043A)
  л (uni043B)
  п (uni043F) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic 
  т (uni0442) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic 
  ц (uni0446)
  ш (uni0448) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic 
  щ (uni0449) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic 
  ю (uni044E)

.loclBGR for Serif Typefaces

Russian Cyrillic

Bulgarian Modern Cyrillic Script

In case you are using SAFARI please see this POP-UP window or follow this LINK.

.loclBGR for Serif Typefaces

The following characters-list have to be included in your Serif Fonts. Please consider that the Serif fonts list is a little bit longer. Some of the glyphs don’t have to be redesigned in Italics.

  Д (uni0414) is optional
  И (uni0418)
  Й (uni0419)
  Ѝ (uni040D)
  Л (uni041B)
  Ф (uni0424) is optional

  в (uni0432)
  г (uni0433)
  д (uni0434)
  ж (uni0436)
  з (uni0437)
  и (uni0438) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic
  й (uni0439) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic
  ѝ (uni045D) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic
  к (uni043A)
  л (uni043B)
  н (uni043D)
  п (uni043F) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic
  т (uni0442) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic
  ц (uni0446) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic
  ч (uni0447) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic
  ш (uni0448) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic
  щ (uni0449) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic
  ь (uni044C) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic
  ъ (uni044A) usually there is no need to redesign in Italic
  ю (uni044E)

Historical forms

If you like you can also include some historical forms. They are important for scientific and old texts set before the 1945 spelling reform.

  Ѫ (uni046A)
  ѫ (uni046B)
  Ѣ (uni0462)
  ѣ (uni0463)

How to make .loclBGR work in OpenType

In my opinion there are two ways to make Bulgarian Cyrillic work in your OpenTypes. The first way is use Open Type ’locl’ feature (Localized Forms). You have to add a .loclBGR suffix to all characters which have Bulgarian Cyrillic forms. The second way is to define them as a Stylistic Set. I recommend implementing both features so you can assure that the Bulgarian forms will work properly in all Apps and will also give the opportunity to non-Bulgarian designers to use them without switching the spell check of the text they are working on. So let’s code a little. First you have to make sure that you have the language system in your Font:

 languagesystem cyrl dflt;
 languagesystem cyrl BGR; 

This is how the script should look like for local Bulgarian feature (locl)

  feature locl{ 
  script cyrl;
  language BGR ;
   sub uni0414 by uni0414.loclBGR;
   sub uni041B by uni041B.loclBGR;
   sub uni0424 by uni0424.loclBGR;
   sub uni0432 by uni0432.loclBGR;
   sub uni0433 by uni0433.loclBGR;
   sub uni0434 by uni0434.loclBGR;
   sub uni0436 by uni0436.loclBGR;
   sub uni0437 by uni0437.loclBGR;
   sub uni0438 by uni0438.loclBGR;
   sub uni0439 by uni0439.loclBGR;
   sub uni045D by uni045D.loclBGR;
   sub uni043A by uni043A.loclBGR;
   sub uni043B by uni043B.loclBGR;
   sub uni043F by uni043F.loclBGR;
   sub uni0442 by uni0442.loclBGR;
   sub uni0446 by uni0446.loclBGR;
   sub uni0448 by uni0448.loclBGR;
   sub uni0449 by uni0449.loclBGR;
   sub uni044E by uni044E.loclBGR;
  }locl;

Of course if you like your code to be cleaner, you can make two classes. For example, locl1 class for the Russian characters and locl2 class for the Bulgarian ones. Et voilà! The script looks like this:

  feature locl{ 
  script cyrl;
  language BGR ;
   sub @locl1 by @locl2;
  }locl;

Then you can do the same for the Stylistic Set. For example, I decided to make the Bulgarian Cyrillic as stylistic set 04 (.ss04). I’m using the “ss04” (Stylistic Set 04) in my example but of course you can use any stylistic set from 01 to 20, so in your case it can be “ss01” or “ss07”, depending on how many stylistic sets your font will have.
Please note that it is not necessary to duplicate the characters which you have already made as .lclBGR and then rename them with suffix .ss04.
For that purpose we will just make a little hack in the code:

  feature ss04{ 
   sub uni0414 by uni0414.loclBGR;
   sub uni041B by uni041B.loclBGR;
   sub uni0424 by uni0424.loclBGR;
   sub uni0432 by uni0432.loclBGR;
   sub uni0433 by uni0433.loclBGR;
   sub uni0434 by uni0434.loclBGR;
   sub uni0436 by uni0436.loclBGR;
   sub uni0437 by uni0437.loclBGR;
   sub uni0438 by uni0438.loclBGR;
   sub uni0439 by uni0439.loclBGR;
   sub uni045D by uni045D.loclBGR;
   sub uni043A by uni043A.loclBGR;
   sub uni043B by uni043B.loclBGR;
   sub uni043F by uni043F.loclBGR;
   sub uni0442 by uni0442.loclBGR;
   sub uni0446 by uni0446.loclBGR;
   sub uni0448 by uni0448.loclBGR;
   sub uni0449 by uni0449.loclBGR;
   sub uni044E by uni044E.loclBGR;
  }ss04

For sure you can use also classes:

  feature ss04{
   sub @locl1 by @locl2;
  } ss04

Marks in the Cyrillic Script

Some characters in the Cyrillic script need marks but they do not have a Unicode and actually do not exist as precomposed characters. A nice way to make them work is using Combining Marks. Please note that in that case the kerning might have some issues. I will talk about them a little bit later.

  CyrillicBrevecomb (no unicode)
  Gravecomb (uni0300)
  Acutecomb (uni0301)

The following characters need Anchors so that the combining marks will be positioned properly:

  А (uni0410)
  Г (uni0413)
  Е (uni0415)
  З (uni0417)
  И (uni0418)
  К (uni041A)
  О (uni041E)
  С (uni0421)
  У (uni0423)
  Ъ (uni042A)
  Ю (uni042E)
  Я (uni042F)
  а (uni0430)
  г (uni0433)
  е (uni0435)
  з (uni0437)
  и (uni0438)
  к (uni043A)
  о (uni043E)
  с (uni0441)
  у (uni0443)
  ъ (uni044A)
  ю (uni044E)
  я (uni044F)

You can also create them as precomposed characters and then access them via OT features. In my opinion this method works better but makes the font size bigger. First you have to define three lookups in the Feature Panel/Prefix (if you work with Glyphs App. In FontLab the “prefix” is the down square in the OpenType panel. In the following code example in the last lookup are the actual precomposed characters.

  lookup loclBGRa{
    sub uni0433 by uni0433.loclBGR;
    sub uni043A by uni043A.loclBGR;
    ...
  }loclBGRa;

  lookup loclBGRb{
    sub uni0453 by uni0433.loclBGR acutecomb;
    sub uni045C by uni043A.loclBGR acutecomb;    
    ...
  }loclBGRb;

  lookup loclBGRc{
    sub uni0433.loclBGR acutecomb by uni0433_acutecomb.loclBGR;
    sub uni043A.loclBGR acutecomb by uni043A_acutecomb.loclBGR;
    ...
  }loclBGRc;

Ok, then we can use this lookups in every feature that we need. In our particular case we defined Bulgarian Cyrillic as .loclBGR and .ss04. For the local feature the code looks like this:

  feature locl{
    script cyrl;
    language BGR;
    lookup loclBGRa;
    lookup loclBGRb;
    lookup loclBGRc;
  }locl;

And for the stylisic set 04 like this:

  feature ss04{
    lookup loclBGRa;
    lookup loclBGRb;
    lookup loclBGRc;
  }ss04;

The Future

Let’s talk a little bit about the future. Cyrillic Script is still evolving nowadays. The type-designers go different ways to solve its issues. That is one of the main reasons why we have Bulgarian and Russian Cyrillic. Actually I am not a big fan of this division. In my opinion there is just one Cyrillic with different solutions, which is quite nice in the complex world we live in. I often hear from Russian and Western type-designers that they do like the so-called Bulgarian forms. And that’s why I asked myself how would it be possible to use both designs not just as local forms but as the entire Cyrillic Extended. One way would be to include all the characters which have different forms:

  ѓ ќ ґ ғ җ ҙ қ ҝ ҡ

double (with Russian and Bulgarian form) and then define them in the features as I described above. This will expand the Font and increase the file size. Another possibility or idea, which is based on the ttfdiet tool made by Adam Twardoch and Karsten Lücke, would be to use the ‘ccmp’ feature, but which can also be used in other features like “locl” and ”ss04”. Then the feature code will look like this:

  feature locl{
    script cyrl; 
    language BGR;
    lookup loclBGRa{
     sub uni0433 by uni0433.loclBGR;  
     sub uni043A by uni043A.loclBGR; ... 
    } loclBGRa;   
    lookup loclBGRb {  
     sub uni0453 by uni0433.loclBGR acutecomb;  
     sub uni045C by uni043A.loclBGR acutecomb; ... 
    }loclBGRb;
   }locl;

Many years ago in a hardware store I read this quote: “ If your computer does not cause any problems it is already too old.” That seems to be true for all new developments. The method above is not an exception. The main issue is with the kerning. For example, we have the character ”ӑ” which is actually compounded from two glyphs: the Cyrillic letter “a” (uni0430) and the cyrillic breve “˘” That means that the text-engine will not interpret the combinations as a “letter, a-breve, letter” but as “letter, a-cyrillic, breve-cyrillic, letter”. This causes two types of problems with the kerning. The first problem appears with combinations like ”T,ӑ-cyrillic” which will be interpreted as “T, a-cyrillic, breve-cyrillic” by the text-engine. This means that we will have the kerning value of ”T,a-cyrillic” thus the “T” might end rather close to the breve – Tӑ . Second problem is with combinations like ”ӑk” which will be interpreted as “a-cyrillic, breve- cyrillic, k-cyrillic” as a result we will have no kerning (it does not make any sense to kern combining marks). There is a possibility to set „lookupflag IgnoreMarks;“ in the kerning feature. The marks between two characters will be ignored from the text engine. In this particular example we will have the kerning value of ”ak”.Another approach is the so called contextual kerning “kern ‘Ta’ by +20 if ‘a’ is followed by a combining Mark”. The only App which provides UI for making contextual kerning is Microsoft VOLT. So as you see we still have a lot to do for the Cyrillic Script in technical and in design aspect.

8 July 2016

Botio Nikoltchev

Originally published on LETTERSOUP.DE
Republished with the permission of the author

In this exclusive interview Botio Nikoltchev speaks about his professional development. He was a student of Lucas de Groot and after graduating he had the chance to work with such famous type designers as Akira Kobayashi and Erik Spiekermann. Botio also shares his views on the diversity of Cyrillic letterform models in the different Cyrillic alphabets. He tells us about the project Sofia Sans, which is now the typeface of Sofia – the capital of Bulgaria. Botio also describes his newest release Apparat and reveals his future plans.

Let’s talk about your professional and creative journey. Where did it start – in Sofia or Berlin? Which colleagues and professors have left a mark on your work?

Botio Nikoltchev (BN): I don’t see myself as an artist but more as an addict. Type design is actually an endless way of improvement, an endless search of harmony and rhythm, an endless desire of beauty and ugliness.

It was a long way until I started designing typefaces. But yes, it was in Berlin, I started my studies as an industrial designer. My love for type came by taking typography classes with Prof. Betina Müller and type-design classes with Prof. Lucas de Groot.

I was lucky to have the opportunity to work with some leading type designers. There were moments I thought Akira Kobayashi doesn’t have eyes, but microscopes. His ability to see the smallest details is really incredible.

Erik Spiekermann –– what a literate and entertaining man. Оnce we talked about Bulgarian history and his knowledge truly impressed me. He is not just able to recognize problems on a daily life basis, and solve them through design, but he is also excellent in finding the right people at the right time for the job.

You are part of many font projects in which you are also responsible for the development of the Cyrillic script. What are the main challenges which a modern type designer needs to overcome when working on Cyrillic font projects?

BN: The challenges are quite similar to the Latin and there are no particular ones. It always depends on the project, the client etc.

Of course there are decisions to be made e.g. how to handle characters like “K”. They could have the same grapheme but they also could look different in Latin, Cyrillic and Greek.

What is your personal and professional view on the local forms of the Cyrillic like Bulgarian, Serbian, North Macedonain, Ukrainian and the Cyrillic used by Mongolians, Bashkirs etc.?

BN: Although as a type designer I work mostly with a black and white colors, I enjoy very much the colorful aspects of life. I like the diverseness of the Cyrillic world and the character variations.

When you think in terms of evolution, it never moves in a straight direction and it never ends at one particular point. So to me these variations are the epitome of the continuously flowing and changing Cyrillic world.

A while ago, together with Vassil Kateliev we launched a research on the handwritten forms of these languages. The idea was and still is to prove if Buglarian Cyrillic can serve the entire Cyrillic character set.

What motivates you to support the Bulgarian Cyrillic form (you call it Rounded Cyrillic)? In your opinion, what is the future of the Cyrillic script?

BN: I believe Bulgarians need the Bulgarian Cyrillic. Type is a cultural heritage, it is one of the ways to recreate the surrounding world. Thus type expresses our worldview, our philosophy of life. By not having the Bulgarian Cyrillic we’ll also lack our worldview.

Yes, I prefer to call the Bulgarian forms Rounded Cyrillic and the Russian forms Square Cyrillic. It describes the designs and it does not have political touch. Back in 2017, my friend Adam Twardoch came up with the idea about the name. It was based on the rounded- and square Glagolitic.

I worked several years, of course together with a number of colleagues and friends, on “the future” and now there is a standard which characters should be designed for Bulgarian Cyrillic, as well as implemented Bulgarian character set (encodings) in the font editors, there is a technical guideline on how to set the Open Type features in order to perform properly local forms in all browsers and apps. Monotype and Google fonts are including and producing the Rounded Cyillic in nearly all new releases and an increasing number of western designers are creating Bugarian Cyrillic for their typefaces. When you look back, several years ago the fonts with Bulgarian Cyrillic were scarce goods.

Тhe next step for me is to see the Rounded and Squared Cyrillic as equals. By now, the Russian forms are in default position in the fonts and Bulgarian forms on local feature or stylistic set. Soon, I’m about to release quite a big font family where the Bulgarian forms are in default position.

But I would like to see the next years in “the past”. We do have so many artefacts, books, manuscripts that are quite unexplored. We don’t really know much about the history. In fact, we don’t even have a reasonable answer to questions like why the Cyriliic was developed and why we switched to it instead of the Glagolitic.

How many Bulgarian books about typedesign do you know… four! And how many of them are translated into English – none!

In 2019, the chief architect of Sofia Zdravko Zdravkov announced that he will suggest all the labels on the streets and official documents of Sofia municipality to use a unified font standard. This font is called Sofia Sans – a co-project of Ani Petrova and Botio Nikoltchev. Did Sofia Sans become the typeface of the capital?

BN: I’m truly happy this project happened. More than 30 years after so many efforts, there is a political understanding for the need of better visual language in our cities. But this transformation happens quite slowly.

This project is also made in a large team – it started with Ani Petrova, Filip Bojadjiev and me. Then Andreas Eigendorf, Eli Hoyer and Viviana Monsalve did the mastering and produced Variable Fonts. Mario Evstatiev and I made several pixel versions of Sofia Sans for the public transport. But yes, I think meanwhile it is the typeface of the bulgarian capital city. You can see it on the tourist wayfinding system, on the street signs, on the public transport. Аlso the Bulgarian State Railways use it, I saw it also on one of the private TV channels. It seems people like it a lot.

It is worth mentioning that we published the typeface with an Open Font License, as I think such projects should be Open Source. Sofia Sans will be soon released on Google Fonts as well, and the latest versions will be always published on our Github account.

With this project I also managed to achieve a goal of mine. Bulgarian Cyrillic is in default position in the fonts.

I think with a typeface of such a largе scale – 4 widths and 11 weights and also on Google Fonts, where there is a huge amount of users, it is quite a statement.

At the beginning of 2021 you published your latest font – Apparat. How does Apparat fit in the modern visual communication – as a reinterpretation of the past or as a search for classic clean and modern drawing?

BN: It is clearly an interpretation of the past, actually I´m exploring Dwiggins approach to “humanise” geometric sans forms. Apparat’s design is the result of both historical research and experience gained during the design of custom fonts.

The idea was to create a large contemporary type family in four widths—Standard, Semi Condensed, Condensed, and Extra Condensed, a geometric sans serif with subtle humanistic design traits that has a well-rounded personality that stands out when used in display applications; however, the characteristic design details recede to the background not to attract unnecessary attention when using the typeface in small sizes for body copy.

Creating such a wide range has become more accessible in contemporary typeface development thanks to interpolation, which facilitates calculating intermediary steps between two extremes. But typefaces that are clearly interpolated run the risk of looking mechanic and soulless and often lack character. Having the technology available doesn’t mean it necessarily needs to be used. Apparat avoids these pitfalls by having no perfect harmony between the different weights and widths. These intentional variations lend each type style its specific personality that complements the others.

Peter Bilak once said that modern fonts are a result of teamwork between many professionals. What is the future of typedesign and where is the thin line between individual and teamwork?

BN: Typedesign is and was a very consrvative field. I don’t think we will see any big revolutions in type soon.

I absolutely agree with Peter Bil’ak that modern typefaces are teamwork in a design aspect but also because they are complex products. It is not just the idea or the design. There are many script systems, there is quality assurance, there is mastering of the fonts, there are marketing materials like specimens, websites, social media communication.

So yes, for a big multilingual typefaces you need a large team of professionals in all these fields. But I also love to discuss my basic designs with friends and colleagues, to exchange ideas, to hear different points of view.

What are your plans for 2021 and beyond?

BN: I hope 2021 is more favorable to all of us! This year together with Viktor Nübel I will resume a big custom project for Cornelsen publishing house. Cornelsen are one of the main schoolbook publishers in Germany. I´m very proud that we won this design pitch and very thankful for this opportunity. We are creating a huge type sistem with sans and serif typeface, also with different widths, optical size designs etc.

It is quite interesting to work for such a big company with all the different departments like print, web, app developer who all have their own requirements on a very high quality level.

In the next few weeks, there will be a long awaited Sofia Sans variable font release on Google Fonts with OFL license.

I’m working on several new typefaces simultaneously, but I don’t want to reveal so much.

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Editor

Szandra Peev

Szandra Peev has been working in the field of communications and marketing for almost a decade now. Her curiosity to explore new cultures and destinations took her to Asia where for five years she worked with some of the biggest multinational companies globally. Currently, Szandra is back in Europe, leading the communications and marketing efforts for localfonts.eu and contributing as a writer in print and online media outlets.

Font Sampler

Sofia Sans

WEB: Културен център
СУ „Св. Климент Охридски“
WEB: Вестник „Телеграф“
WEB: БТА (BG)
WEB: Bulgarian News Agency (EN)

Carrois Type Design

Carrois Type Design (Berlin, Germany) started up officially ca. 2010, although Ralph du Carrois has been designing typefaces since ca. 2002. This dynamic company in Germany has three art directors, Jenny du Carrois, Anja Meiners and Botjo Nikoltchev. All three also design typefaces, as well as Adam Twardoch, Andreas Eigendorf and Ralph du Carrois himself. The company specializes in custom type.

Web:
Typefaces: Fira Sans Condensed
More… TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION | Carrois Type Design

Milka Peikova

Milka Peikova (b. 1919, Pavel, Bulgaria, d. 2016, Sofia, Bulgaria) was a famous Bulgarian artist. She created paintings, posters, book covers, portraits of famous Bulgarians, textile designs and alphabets, both individually and together with her husband Georgi Kovachev-Grishata (1920-2012). She is a graduate of the Bulgarian National Art Academy, class of 1948. She founded Cosmos magazine and designed for the Women Today and Problems of Art magazines.
In 1979, she designed an alphabet that was extended to an 8-style Latin / Greek / Cyrillic stencil typeface—Milka (2016)—by a team of designers at Lettersoup that includes Ani Petrova, Botio Nikoltchev, Adam Twardoch and Andreas Eigendorf. The basic Milka font is a clean stencil design, while the Aged, Baked, Brittle, Crunchy, Dry and Soft styles are inspired by stencil and letterpress techniques and expand the usefulness by adding various degrees of warmth or roughness.
Milka Peikova also designed the first Bulgarian typeface for phototypesetting called Grilimil with her husband Georgi Kovachev-Grishata. She is the recipient of the first prize for a typeface at the Bulgarian National Book Exhibition and Illustration.

Typefaces: Milka
More… TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION | Milka Peikova

Font Sampler

Milka

Milka

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Milka

Milka Milka

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Milka Milka

Font Sampler

Cyrillic

Krista Radoeva

Cyrillic script variations and the importance of localisation

 

Serbian

Vedran Eraković

Use of Serbian Cyrillic in Computers

 

Serbian

Stefan Peev

Serbian Cyrillic Feature Locl

 

Romanian

Cristian Paul

How did we end up looking half-illiterate?

 

Chuvash

Stefan Peev

Chuvash Cyrillic Feature Locl

 

Turkish

Stefan Peev

OpenType feature for Turkish i

TypeDrawers

What is i.latnTRK

Glyphs

Localize Your Font: Turkish i

I18nguy

Internationalization for Turkish: Dotted and Dotless Letter “I”

Bulgarian

Botio Nikoltchev

What shall be done for Bulgarian Cyrillic .loclBGR

 

Bulgarian

Stefan Peev

Bulgarian Cyrillic Feature Locl

 

Dutch

Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer

Accented Dutch ij

 

French

TypeDrawers

French apostrophe

 

Bashkir

Stefan Peev

Bashkir Cyrillic Feature Locl

 

Polish

Adam Twardoch

Polish Kreska

 

Language as Design Criteria

Bianca Berning

Language as Design Criteria

Part I… Part II… Part III…

Other sources

Tags: Language System Tags
OpenType: Local Features (OpenType code)
Fontfabric: A closer look at the Bulgarian stylistic variation of the Cyrillic script