Anastasia Balashova, Egor Golovyrin, Liza Rasskazova, Maria Doreuli, Nikita Sapozhkov, and Tasya Petelina
Contrast Foundry joins Type Network
April 13, 2023
Lucas Czarnecki: If you can remember a specific moment, when and why did you become interested in type design?
Maria Doreuli: I became interested in type design while taking typography classes with Alexander Tarbeev. This is true for all of us at Contrast Foundry, since we graduated from the same place, Moscow State University for Printing Arts.
LC: What is the story behind your first typeface?
MD: My first typeface attempt was quite a silly design, and it was never used outside of my type specimens. That is why I consider William, my Caslon revival, to be the first actual typeface. William also became my first typeface to be published back when we did not have our own site yet.
Since then, Contrast Foundry has become a platform where we finish and publish our graduation (and other) projects. This happened for Liza’s, Robert’s, and my Chimera (coming soon to Type Network). This is also true for our upcoming releases: Holz and Kabeltouw.
When studying at university, we were encouraged to look for an idea that could serve potential users. For example, a style that does not exist in the Cyrillic world, or an idea that does not have a quality digital version. This concept stayed with us, and time shows that these are the projects that become successful.
Contrast Foundry is a global studio focused on designing letterforms in all their incarnations.
LC: How did you meet, and why did you decide to start working together?
MD: Even though most of us studied with the same professors, we did not meet at the university. But this mutual connection definitely became the key factor in why we started working together.
LC: Why did you start your own foundry, and what is the story behind your foundry’s name?
MD: I have always felt like it is the only way to do what I want to do, which is to be in control of the whole process, from design to publishing and promoting. It was just a matter of time until it happened.
The name Contrast came up during a chat with Krista Radoeva. No wonder why! “Contrast” is the fundamental term at Type and Media, where we both studied. So, basically, after that conversation the name just stuck with me. I even wondered why it wasn’t taken yet! It seemed to resemble our interest in questioning conventions and what we’ve learned. Krista and I did not become business partners, but we teach together and often collaborate.
“CoFo” came later, in the process of launching our store. We needed something short and a little less serious sounding. Once again, it was a friend of mine, creative director Ivan Velichko, who came up with it. He helped us during the launch process and gave great advice from the perspective of a potential user and client.
Birds Records identity by BBDO Branding, using CoFo Sans. Source: Fonts In Use.
History of UNIX-like operating systems. Source: Contrast Foundry.
Reminder online publication identity by Ivan Annenkov. Source: Behance.
Gravity Solutions identity by Shuka Brand Bureau using CoFo Sans. Source: Fonts In Use.
LC: How do your design processes differ from one another?
MD: Our design processes have gotten very much aligned over time. But each of us has different sources of inspiration, different “hands” I would say. This makes it really nice to collaborate.
LC: What are your major sources of design inspiration?
MD: Each of us has their own strengths. Liza is often inspired by the city she lives in; she is always eagerly looking for interesting signs and graffiti. For Nikita, it is journeys, environments, and meeting new people; perhaps the sum of these gives inspiration to create something non-trivial and fresh. Egor learned calligraphy from his mother when he was a child, so he is amazing at everything related to manual work with tools. As for me, nothing gets me more inspired than the actual process of doing. I also like tying things together in the studio. Seeing things go live is what makes me keep going.
Process images for designing CoFo FlicFlac show how its shapes morphed to become more uniform and lively over time.
LC: Do you have a favorite example of seeing your type used in the wild?
MD: One of our favorites is definitely CoFo Cinema1909 in Anna Kulachek’s identity for The Khudozhestvenny cinema.
I personally love Valiz, the book series designed by Lotte Lara Schröder using CoFo Chimera and CoFo Sans.
It is great to see when designers combine a few of our fonts together. CoFo Robert and CoFo Kak are often used together with CoFo Sans. And overall CoFo Sans has beome the to-go typeface for many of our clients. It may not be as exciting as seeing your typeface used big, but seeing a typeface as the primary body copy face for a digital product or a book—that will never get old.
LC: Tell me about the typefaces with which you’re launching on Type Network.
MD: CoFo Sans started as a typeface for the interface of our site. Therefore, I designed it with small size usage in mind. CoFo Sans Mono also came about for our own needs—we needed a monospaced typeface for some technical applications like tables, invoices, and captions. So, it is not a surprise that CoFo Sans and CoFo Sans Mono work great together.
Along with these rather neutral designs, we are also releasing CoFo FlicFlac. This typeface had quite an interesting path. It started as lettering for a friend, but later I sketched the whole alphabet for Dutch Alphabets publication. And thanks to Carlín Díaz, FlicFlac got a digital version that was first used in Kakkmaddafakka's Lilac music video.
LC: What does it mean for you to be joining Type Network? Who among the foundry partners and staff are you most excited about working with?
MD: Joining Type Network means bringing our typefaces to another level of quality and precision. While our library is growing, we are gaining experience and we are always looking for ways to level up and learn more. Needless to say, we are really excited about being in touch with the larger community through Type Network.
LC: What is next for you?
MD: I want to say new collaborations and new challenging typefaces. But despite all our business and creative goals, the last few years clearly show that there are more important things that should go first. We need to care about each other, about ourselves, and do our best to make sure the work that we do is doing good for people.
CoFo Sans, CoFo Sans Mono, and CoFo FlicFlac can be licensed for print, web, mobile apps, and ePubs. Webfonts may be tested for thirty days, and desktop trials are available upon request. Have a licensing question? Check out our support page or get in touch.
Maria’s passion for drawing and collecting printed ephemera lead her to study graphic design at the Moscow State University of Printing, where she earned her masters degree. Her typeface William received ATypI’s Letter.2 award, among others, and she was named Akzia newspaper's Young Designer of the Year in 2011. She founded Contrast Foundry in 2014.