Rezak Cyrillic

Designed by Anya Danilova . Released 2022.

Rezak’s crunchy letters are meant to expose rough, daring, or dramatic text. A further benefit is that this family is not sequestered within one specific genre or script, so it can be easily interpreted for other scripts, such as its current Latin and extended Cyrillic which supports such neglected languages as Abkhaz, Itelmen, and Koryak.

See Rezak Latin here.
  • Winner of Gerard Unger Scholarship 2020
  • TDC Certificate of Typographic Excellence
  • Silver at ED-awards 2023

Там, где живут боги и духи. Where gods and spirits live.

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Вначале было дерево: Красная Шапочка ли сбилась с пути, “wild people” ли бесчинствуют – немецкие мифы и предания часто очень тесно связаны с лесом.

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В северной мифологии образ дерева в принципе является базовым: мировой ясень Иггдрасиль символизирует всю вселенную. Ветви его соединяют девять миров, а корни ведут в Асгард, где живут боги-асы. Разумеется, если смотреть с другой стороны, то получится, что они живут в вышине. Иггдрасиль объединяет небо, землю и подземный мир; вечнозеленое мировое древо – символ жизни, метафора становления и распада, вечно сменяющих друг друга.

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In the Edda, a book of Norse sagas and hero songs, the gods gather at Yggdrasil when they need to confer and make a fair judgment. Perhaps, the medieval custom of holding court near an oak or linden tree is very distantly related to this. A gnarled old tree generally looks impressive; hardly anyone can resist his aura, and certainly not when a whole forest opens up behind him - boundless, dark and mysterious. After all, it is not known what is hidden behind the neighboring tree, and what suddenly rustled in the undergrowth ...

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The Backstory

Rezak Cyrillic

A jaunty, dynamic type family that stretches beyond one specific font category and use.

Nothing is hidden in the simplistic forms and overt aesthetic of Anya Danilova’s Rezak font family. Rezak is not a type family directly from the digital world, but was inspired by the stout presence of cutting letters out of tangible material: paper, stone, and wood. With only a few cuts, the shapes remain dark and simple. With more cuts, the shapes become lighter and more defined, resulting in a dynamic type family not stuck within one specific category.

The Black and medium weights began as one approach before separating into display and text categories. The four text weights were created through pendulum swings in design direction that experimented with contrast, angles, tangent redirections, and the amount of anomalies allowed. The text weights are vocal when set larger than ten points and subtle at smaller sizes. The tech-heavy Incised display style came last, employing a surprising range of trigonometric functions to make it behave exactly as desired. Its look can result in something distinctive and emotional or completely over-the-top.

Most normal typefaces change only in thickness; Rezak changes in intention, highlighting the relationship between dark and light, presence and absence, what’s removed and what remains. Rezak’s Black and Incised display styles are like a shaft of light in reverse and are perfect in situations of impact: websites, headlines and large text, gaming, call-outs, posters, and packaging. The tone works for something from youthful or craft-oriented to organic and natural products. Try these two in logotypes, complex print layering, branding, and words-as-pattern for greater experimentation.

The text styles are bold, energetic, well informed, and round out the family with four weights (Regular, Semibold, Bold, Extrabold) and matching italics for a family grand total of ten. These jaunty styles work well in children’s books, call-outs, movie titles, and subheads for myriad subjects such as architecture, coffee, nature, cooking, and other rough-and-tumble purposes.

Rezak’s crunchy letters are meant to expose rough, daring, or dramatic text. A further benefit is that this family is not sequestered within one specific genre or script, so it can be easily interpreted for other scripts, such as its current Latin and extended Cyrillic which supports such neglected languages as Abkhaz, Itelmen, and Koryak. Rezak’s push toward creativity and innovation, with an eye on typography’s rich history, reinforces our foundry’s mission to publish invigorating forms at the highest function and widest applicability.

CREDITS
Lead design and concept
Anya Danilova

Supervision
Veronika Burian
José Scaglione

Engineering
Joancarles Casasin
 
Quality assurance
Azza Alameddine

Consultancy and proofreading
Vera Evstafieva (Cyrillic)

Graphic design
Elena Veguillas
Rabab Charafeddine
Felicia Priscillya

Icon designer
Luciana Sottini

Motion Design
Cecilia Brarda

Copywriting
Joshua Farmer