site.btaBTA Presents Its Own Typeface on 127th Anniversary of Its First Bulletin

The Bulgarian News Agency launches its own typeface on the day it marks 127 years since the publication of its first bulletin, February 16. From now on, all of BTA's print and digital texts will have a uniform look.

There are not many registered typefaces in Bulgaria designed by Bulgarians for the Cyrillic alphabet, BTA Director General Kiril Valchev explained when accepting the custom-made typeface from the National Academy of Art (NAR) at the BTA National Press Club on December 20. Fonts in which the Cyrillic alphabet is adapted to the Latin alphabet and developed by other countries are widely used, he specified.

At present, BTA uses various fonts. The website uses Sofia Sans, developed for Sofia Municipality with the participation of specialists from the National Academy of Arts. The agency's LIK magazine uses the Pliska, Monserrat, and Bitter fonts. BTA's correspondence is written in Times New Roman.

BTA's custom-made typeface will be free to use by all Bulgarian institutions. Valchev expressed the hope that this initiative could lead to a uniform visual identity for Bulgaria, possibly supported by legislative measures. 

The typeface was developed by a team of the National Academy of Art. The requirements for the project were two: to build on the tradition of Cyril and Methodius' disciples and the script used by Bulgarians in the 9th–10th centuries, and to ensure a high level of uniqueness. "What our colleagues have done - and when we show the typeface itself, you will see - is a direct link between the spelling of the letters from the inscriptions we have from Preslav and their modern version in the typeface we are getting," the BTA Director General said in December.  "Each uppercase and lowercase letter has distinct features, subtle yet discernible, so the lowercase letters evoke a sense of handwriting," he explained.

The new typeface was created by Assoc. Prof. Svetlin Balezdrov, a lecturer in Advertising Design at the NAR, Prof. Kristina Borisova, a long-standing lecturer in font at the NAR, Dr. Zhaklina Zhekova, a lecturer in font at the NAR,  and Nikolay Petrusenko, a graduate of the Master's programme in Font at the NAR, a PhD student at the Visual Arts Department of the St Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia, and a lecturer in font at the National Academy of Art since 2018. 

According to Petrusenko, the new typeface uses the Bulgarian visual identity of the Cyrillic alphabet, which makes it absolutely suitable for both functional use and identification with BTA.

The typeface is named LIK, after BTA's magazine for culture of the same name. 

The typeface has already been registered with the Patent Office.