An Incise for City Navigation

Alexandra Korolkova

This is the story behind a pretty special navigation typeface designed for a city in the southwestern part of Russia, Belgorod (the name means White City) that has a long and dramatic history. Starting as a Slavic dwelling in the eighth century, and became an important fortress defending the state border from numerous enemy attacks in the sixteenth century. For that reason, the city was completely destroyed three times. The most recent was in 1943 by the Nazis during World War II. The city was fully rebuilt in the 1940s and 1950s with wide, straight streets and a lot of open space. As Belgorod decided to change its address wall plaques that showcase, and sometimes create, the city’s personality and style; a new navigation font was needed. The font had to be extremely readable because of the wide streets, needing very large x-height and generous spacing. Another important requirement for the new font was to reflect the city’s spirit: a combination of the former fortress and the new clean, well-maintained city. The city’s utmost desire to combine history and beauty, showcasing southern Slavic heritage with a hint of calligraphic tradition. Starting from the idea of thickened terminals, which are sometimes used in fonts designed for readability; the final type was incised Serifs. The letters have broad-nib calligraphy logic in lowercase and a Roman monumental look in uppercase. Belgorod typeface performs as a highly readable, humanist Sans-Serif when it is seen from afar and turns into an elegant incised Serif up close. Most importantly, both the local designers and city administration liked the typeface from the first glance.