Since its beginnings in 2016, Type.Today has been hosting a small collection of contemporary typefaces with high-quality Cyrillic letters which “reflect the visual language of the present and the near future.” Publishing fonts created by designers and studios globally, although predominantly from Russia and Belarus, every high-quality typeface is hand-picked by the store’s founders, Ilya Ruderman and Yury Ostromentsky, and designed by talented young designers and world renowned stars alike.
2019 marked the arrival of Type.Today’s second font library, ‘tomorrow,’ which presents “bright display experimental typefaces that are distributed under an experimental license,” and sees their collection being split into two conceptual parts: one current, ‘today,’ and one speculative, ‘tomorrow.’ While Type.Today’s journal started in tandem with the online store in 2016, it has since evolved with the strands of the store’s two collections into a unique, bilingual platform centring the discussion and celebration of type from varying perspectives, alongside publishing interviews with professional graphic and type designers all over the world.
As the journal evolved and the team gradually began accumulating feedback, Ilya and Yury decided to extend their content and develop it into a fully-fledged editorial project. Joining forces with Dasha Yarzhambek, the team decided the journal needed to become a useful resource for anyone with an interest in typography—from experienced type designers, web designers, and editors all the way through to poets and those further afield. The journal now publishes release reviews on typefaces supporting Cyrillic and monthly digests of typographic news, alongside resources which deliver well researched educational content.
Each month, Type.Today also entrust a young designer or studio with running their Instagram and post images with typefaces from their library daily. Following this, they run an interview with each temporary host to talk about their work, and reflect on how it felt working with Type.Today‘s collection. “We believe it a good opportunity to speak not only about our typefaces, but also about interesting designers and studios,” Type.Today add.
Since the conception of their journal, Type.Today continue, all content has been published in both English and Russian in a move to “enable people reading in Cyrillic to be as much integrated into the international context as possible, and to let English-speaking audiences see how many interesting, fresh, unique things are happening in the post-Soviet area.” Built on the belief that a professional community should aim to defy borders, whether geographic, political or social, the journal acts as a unique place where design communities are brought together and given the ability to see through a different lens.
From celebrating bright young talents to offering intelligent, multifaceted commentary—breaking down the ins and outs of font licensing to delivering breakdowns of micro-typography—Type.Today is a powerful source of typographic content that bridges between communities in both Russian and English. For more on Type.Today, be sure to check out their journal and both of their stunning type collections.
