Built on the results of a week-long student workshop in the summer of 2023, KTF’s Metro font family is a development in our typographic research of Kyiv, through which metro stations became new discovery sites. A bundle of five fonts draws inspiration from the city’s original metro lettering—a remaining piece of Kyiv’s past that a group of designers were asked to document, analyze, and repurpose as material for new fonts, vessels for their history to live on. We want to discuss the font family’s firm roots in the city’s past and present, the importance of taking a critical and balanced approach to typographic revival, and our resistance to letting go of Ukraine’s history in all its difficulties in order to reclaim and critically evaluate the country’s Cyrillic heritage of Soviet time. One of the five, KTF Metro Roman, became a springboard for further development: it elaborates on the letter’s three-dimensionality and play of light and explores color font technology. A new turn to look at the historical forms of Capitalis Monumentalis through the lens of technology.
Kyiv Metro Fonts
Yevgeniy Anfalov
Born in Kyiv (Ukraine) in 1986, Yevgeniy Anfalov moved to Germany in 2003. He studied Visual Communication at Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts, and launched his own design practice in 2010, two years before graduation. From 2015 to 2017, Yevgeniy completed an MA in Art Direction at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne, majoring in Type Design. He obtained an excellence award for his graduation book project on the history of electronic music, ROTARY. Geschichte des Studios für elektronische Musik WDR Köln 1951–81.
Yevgeniy works in type, editorial design, visual identities, and education. In July 2021, he launched Kyiv Type Foundry, which offers a contemporary perspective on the heritage of Cyrillic type. Since completing the LL Heymland (2020), his first typeface for Lineto, Yevgeniy has collaborated with type foundries worldwide. KTF was commissioned to redesign a text typeface for Leica. Yevgeniy teaches at HfK Bremen and gives workshops on type design and Cyrillic making.