multilingual alternative to Trajan

[stw]

This topic was imported from the Typophile platform

Hello,

I am searching for a multilingual alternative to Trajan. It doesnt have to look exactly like Trajan, Im just searching for something with a similar feel and oldstyle proportions. A just uppercase font is enough. But I need an extended latin character set and cyrillic letters as well.

Thank you very much for suggestions.
best regards. Steven

[nina]

Look here: https://typography.guru/forums/topic/65465-forwarding

One potential problem is that Trajan is inherently Latin, being based on Roman inscriptions; so a Cyrillic font in the same style is presumably not going to have the same feel, or trigger the same associations.

[Pomeranz]

Hello Steven,

what about Parachute’s Monumenta Pro? You can watch it here: http://www.parachute.gr/fonts.aspx?Sample=1&FontStyleID=&FontFamilyID=32&CharacterSetID=52. It speaks latin, greek and cyrillic.

Best wishes,
Th. Kunz
[ www.ABCdarium.de ]

[hrant]

What Nina said.

From that other thread:
A Cyrillic font that follows Trajan’s forms slavishly is not really an analog to Trajan, because it cannot say the same thing in that “voice” to Russians. Fonts don’t convey their atmosphere so superficially; you need to look deeper - figure out which Cyrillic font says to Russians what Trajan says to Westerners.

hhp

[Maxim Zhukov]

• One potential problem is that Trajan is inherently Latin, being based on Roman inscriptions; so a Cyrillic font in the same style is presumably not going to have the same feel, or trigger the same associations.

I beg to differ. Historically there have been quite a few attempts, some of them more successful than others, at developing Cyrillic versions of the Trajan letters. The earliest one I know of was Trajanus Kyrillisch (by Hermann Zapf; D.Stempel, 1957). There is a number of Cyrillic digital fonts whose design was inspired by the Roman monumental lettering. The capitals of Lazurski Roman (by Vladimir Lazurski; VNIIPolygraphMash, 1962) are probably the best-known example. Sergei Egorov who lives in the USA continually explores the Trajan legacy. The demand for the definitive Cyrillic version of Adobe Trajan is huge, and it is not likely to go away. Unauthorised Cyrillisations of Carol Twombly’s Trajan abound. Shown below is Romul, by Sergey Shanovich (TypeMarket, 1995).

[hrant]

It's been done formally, and I'm sure you're right about the demand being huge, but I can't see how Russians who look at it get the same mood out of it as people looking at Trajan.

What mood does this convey?
http://themicrofoundry.com/ss_trajic.html

The problem to me is that the formal migration of features violates a more important design parameter.

hhp

[nina]

Agreed: I don't see how the facts that it's been done, and that there's a demand for it (both of which I won't dispute) negate what I said, and Hrant back in the other thread.
In Cyrillic, Trajanesque forms cannot possibly have the same "relative" connotations they have in Latin-land – here, they link back to an important/normative/"classic" chapter in the development of our script, whereas in Cyrillic, they'd essentially be mimicking a foreign model, which I'd expect must "feel" different, or give it a different "flavor".
If I make a font that applies characteristics of classic Chinese fonts to Latin type, even if I am formally successful, it'd be silly to expect the end result to look as inherently classic as the foreign model – it's obviously mostly going to look… foreign-influenced.

[quadibloc]

> What mood does this convey?
http://themicrofoundry.com/ss_trajic.html

I was going to say that it conveys the fact that some people have too much time on their hands, but in a web search, I found out that this experimental face is not being offered for sale... and you appear to be the designer responsible for it.

It's fine to do something to get people to think. Since, however, Russian and Greek have been adapted to Times Roman, I see no problem in allowing people whose language is Russian and Greek to use, in addition to the existing typefaces for their languages, other faces originally designed for the Latin alphabet... Garamond, Baskerville, Cheltenham, Hobo or even Papyrus, if they feel like.

Cyrillic isn't really much different from Latin in the base formes which it uses; yes, some lowercase letters use "small capital" forms, while others (a and e) use the same lowercase as Latin.

Greek, unlike Armenian, at least has the same x-height as Latin, but the fact that its lowercase has a cursive basis rather than an uncial basis does mean that translating fonts is much more problematic - except in this case, where the typeface is uppercase only.

Given the enormous influence of the English-speaking world, though, it's not surprising that typefaces for, say, Japanese have been influenced by display faces designed for the Latin alphabet. Compared to which, translating any Latin typeface to Armenian, Amharic, or even Gujarati - even a blackletter - is small potatoes.

[William Berkson]

Wow, Hrant, Nina, what evidence would ever lead you to question your theory?

Here's a world expert on Cyrillic telling you that not only his eyes tell him differently, but a whole series of Russian designers see it differently, and evidently they think the reading public for Cyrillic languages does as well.

[nina]

William: I don't mean to come across as self-righteous at all! As a matter of principle, I believe what appears to make the most sense to me (no matter who it comes from BTW). That means I'll gladly change my mind when I'm presented with a contrary reasoning that makes more sense.* – In this case, "evidence" that this has been done is not the same as a rationale for why it should work – Hrant's and my reasoning why it shouldn't just seems much more intuitive and plausible to me. By all means, please go ahead and prove me wrong if you think this doesn't make sense. It's a great subject for discussion I think.
(* Same with any other "theory" I may ever present BTW.)

[Maxim Zhukov]

• A Cyrillic font that follows Trajan’s forms slavishly is not really […]
• It’s been done formally, and I’m sure you’re right about the demand being huge, but I can’t see how […]

Take it from a native user of Cyrillic: inspired and informed, skillful and sensitive—not ‘slavish’ or ‘formal’ (those expletives don’t prove anything)—Cyrillisations of type designs, originally developed for Latin script, do work. This is a fact. The œuvre of Vadim Lazurski [not Vladimir: my bad] is a good example.

Hrant, I consider your comparing Cyrillic letterforms to your ‘invented glyphs’ designed in search of ‘the morphological essence of a letter’ a joke. What may look as visual gobbledygook to you is alphabet to the hundreds of millions of Cyrillic users worldwide.

[Jongseong]

It would be useful to take into account that the Latin alphabet is not used by a single homogeneous culture. Various cultures have adopted the Latin alphabet, many of them long before the invention of type and mass literacy homogenized the forms of the alphabet into something we know today. Even a hundred years ago languages such as German and Irish would commonly be printed using different forms of the Latin alphabet from the humanist model we are familiar with.

What do we mean when we speak of Trajan's connotations in the Latinosphere? Does it mean the same to a modern Italian, born into a culture and surroundings that retain a strong link to classical antiquity through the Renaissance revival; to a German old enough to remember learning to read and write in a model removed from what we have today; or to a Madagascan, for whom his native language was first written in the Latin alphabet during the age of the Moderns and Scotch Romans we have been talking so much about lately? Or to an Uzbek, who is living through an uneven and incomplete transition from Cyrillic to Latin (and whose language has historically been written in a version of the Arabic alphabet)? Is an Uzbek phrase written in the Latin alphabet and rendered in Trajan somehow less problematic than the same phrase written in Cyrillic and rendered in Trajanesque forms?

There are lots of Latin alphabet users who are at a considerable cultural remove from Classical Rome. And yet, they have presumably been subjected to Trajan through the multitude of Hollywood films they consume. I sometimes wonder whether those of familiar with the history of the Latin letterforms may often be forgetful of the fact that the vast majority of the masses don't ever really consider the historical and cultural context of the forms of the letters they see around them.

[John Hudson]

Nina, regarding connotations, it isn't as if Russia has been somehow cut off from Latin Europe and completely missed out on any heritage of western classicism. Sure, such classicism was foreign in origin, but 300 years ago it was deliberately imported by Peter the Great -- not only in the reform of the structure and forms of Russian alphabet, but also in architecture, painting, sculpture and music -- and has been completely naturalised. The connotations may not be exactly the same, but there is a common recognition.

[William Berkson]

Nina, I know it's intuitive and plausible, but Maxim is telling you that it's also wrong.

I don't know the history and I don't read any Cyrillic language, but here's my guess: I read on the wikipedia that Peter the Great latinized Cyrillic. When I look at the Cyrillic alphabet I see some characters that look identical to Roman caps.

And our own lower case was 'romanized' by being retro-fitted with Imperial Capitals as initial letters in the 15th century.

So both our scripts have some Roman Caps mixed with other alphabets. So it seems to me pretty plausible that they would see the same elegance and authority in these designs.

Also I would think that the Imperial Caps look elegant and grand, even if you don't read any language with a latin script. You don't have to have lived in ancient times to find the architecture of ancient Rome and Greece grand. A lot isn't cultural, it's just human.

[Riccardo Sartori]

@altaira: it’s obviously mostly going to look… foreign-influenced. Well, being a "modern italian" (as in the Jongseong's example), I could say that Trajan does look somewhat foreign. In the sense that it appear to belong to a different, definite culture.

[Maxim Zhukov]

• Cyrillic isn’t really much different from Latin in the base formes which it uses

This is true: Cyrillic is indeed related to Greek and Latin—functionally, structurally and aesthetically. This relationship goes back a very long way in history, about twelve centuries. There is a nice visual Lazurski put together to illustrate that deep and complex relationship.

• Given the enormous influence of the English-speaking world, though, it’s not surprising that typefaces for, say, Japanese have been influenced by display faces designed for the Latin alphabet. Compared to which, translating any Latin typeface to Armenian, Amharic, or even Gujarati - even a blackletter - is small potatoes.

Here you are referring to the typographic fashion. However, the design of the typefaces that covers both Latin and Cyrillic scripts is not driven by the fashion considerations only, there is a lot more to its rationale. Nor is the ‘enormous influence of the English-speaking world’, which is a relatively recent phenomenon, a decisive factor. It’s just that in the last 300 years Cyrillic typography developed in synch with Western typography: first, Dutch, then French, then German. The synopses of most types used in Russia and other Cyrillic-using countries used to include both Cyrillic and Latin letters. So do the present-day digital Cyrillic fonts. There is nothing controversial, or perverse to the development, or use, of the Cyrillic versions of Trajan, or Garamond, or Baskerville, etc. It is standard practice.

[nina]

This is very interesting to read in conjunction:

"classicism was foreign in origin, but 300 years ago it was deliberately imported by Peter the Great"
"being a “modern italian”[…], I could say that Trajan does look somewhat foreign. In the sense that it appear to belong to a different, definite culture."

Maybe in this special combination – of Trajanesque lettershapes already being somewhat remote to us culturally (and quite likely, especially so in the fringes of Latin-land), plus Cyrillic already having acquired a strong structural closeness to Latin – the difference isn't quite so big as to really be jarring, or even very noticeable (at least not as jarring as it could be between other scripts). But surely it can't completely disappear? Wouldn't there still be a (if barely noticeable) subliminal tinge of foreign-ness to it, of obviously referring back to a different script/culture?

And, this:
"A lot isn’t cultural, it’s just human."
…is exactly what I would be arguing against. Surely, different cultures* have different visual expressions of "grandeur"; and while another culture's "grandeur" may well be recognizable as such, the expression of it surely can't be transferred from one culture to the other just by copying its "surface" formal properties. I mean Japanese calligraphy looks "grand" to me too, but when trying to apply the same style to Latin letters, the result would certainly look distinctly foreign long before it will look "grand".

Now, maybe in the specific context discussed in this thread, this factor of "foreignness" is very small, but that doesn't mean this issue of transferability of style between scripts shouldn't be a basic consideration no matter which scripts we're talking about.

(* I do see that the whole "cultural" argument is particularly hard, and potentially fishy, to apply to Latin.)

[hrant]

> some people have too much time on their hands

Well, when I made that I certainly did have much more free time than I do now! :-) But many type designers do "experiments" like that. I think it helps people -not least the designer himself- see things [better].

> Greek, unlike Armenian, at least has the same x-height as Latin

Not the way I see things. In fact I think even Polish and English don't have the same x-height. :-)

BTW, Ladislas Mandel has claimed this sort of thing for French vs English.

> translating any Latin typeface to Armenian, Amharic, ...

It is this translation that I think: can never be perfect; and has rarely been done right.

> world expert on Cyrillic

William, I think you'd agree that nobody should blindly follow anybody else's advice, because each of us sees the world differently, and that's something to cherish and leverage. It's certainly tricky to balance the opinions of a bonafide expert in a field versus one's personal broader view.

I would also say that seeing a problem is different than solving it, and each requires its own qualities and expertise. In this case I feel I can claim to be able to do the former on my own, but not the latter without the help of somebody like Maxim (except he doesn't agree it's a problem).

> What may look as visual gobbledygook to you is alphabet
> to the hundreds of millions of Cyrillic users worldwide.

That wasn't my point (of course). It's that I think there's something to be grasped exactly by looking at imaginary forms.

Brian, very good point(s). And as I said in that other thread, Trajan doesn't even mean what we seem to hope it does any more.

> it isn’t as if Russia has been somehow cut off from Latin Europe

True, but there certainly is a strong skew, and good design is subtle.

> Maxim is telling you that it’s also wrong.

Maxim is also adamant that the x-height between Latin and Cyrillic must be the same. To most people that makes sense; to me* it doesn't and this has little to do with Cyrillic - it's a much broader belief, which I cannot simply dump case-by-case - that would be hypocritical.

* And I know others (including Cyrillic natives) who agree with me.

> in the last 300 years Cyrillic typography
> developed in synch with the Western typography

To me this has been mostly damaging, and I try to convince people that a re-alignment is needed. You once said that Russians don't need my help. I'm sorry, I can't help it, and I don't know anybody who can stop me.

hhp

[Jongseong]

And as I said in that other thread, Trajan doesn’t even mean what we seem to hope it does any more.

Which is why it would be helpful if Steven, the original poster, explained to us why he is looking for a Trajan alternate. To evoke classical Rome? Or for a generic stately look? Because of the formal properties? For a multilingual campaign for an upcoming Hollywood epic?

[nina]

(P.S.)

translation

I think this is a crucial key word in this context. While a sensitive translation can approximate quite closely, its output will never be «identical» to the input; in much the same way that say a poem cannot be translated between languages without changing very slightly, simply because every language (and here, every script, in terms of its «design space») has its own intricate system of denotations and connotations. Copying the denotative level of the elements is not automagically going to match the connotative level as well, especially when the connotation, as in this case, is actually inherent in the source culture.

[quadibloc]

> Not the way I see things. In fact I think even Polish and English don’t have the same x-height. :-)

> BTW, Ladislas Mandel has claimed this sort of thing for French vs English.

While there might be some on this thread who might ridicule you for saying this (but then, you did include a smiley) I do see your point.

While Cyrillic and Latin letter forms have a great deal in common, it is also true that until recently, they were not using the same typefaces. Russian had a greater tendency to be set in fonts resembling Bodoni or Didot - but with thicker thick strokes.

And it is true that Caslon (English) and Garamond (French) and Bodoni (Italian) and Weiss Roman (German) don't have the same x-heights - and because of differing frequencies of individual letters and pairs of letters, some typefaces that have flaws when used for one language work beautifully with another one.

Rather, therefore, than claiming that you don't have a point, I think I will make a different point that won't contradict yours.

Yes, people with different alphabets - or even people with different languages who use the Latin alphabet - ought to continue to exercise creativity in designing their own typefaces which draw from their own cultural context.

But because there are only "so many hours in each day" and only so many creative type designers available... this should not be considered an argument against taking advantage of the work of typeface designers working in other cultural spheres so as to have even more typeface choices available.

[hrant]

I certainly agree that design is a highly pragmatic endeavor. If you can save time, all else being equal, that's wonderful. I'm a big fan of efficiency (even if often I don't know where it's hiding). But -at least in a text face- I think as a rule important things will go wrong when you transfer formal attributes across scripts.

Here's a summary of my thoughts on this:
http://themicrofoundry.com/ss_rome1.html
For the full treatment you might want to find a copy of the 4th issue of Spatium magazine (or the 5th of the Greek journal Hyphen) where I have an article entitled "Latinization: Prevention and Cure".

BTW, I use my smilies as carefully as I [try to] use my words. That one above was not winking. :-) A clarification is in order however: when Mandel said that a proper French typeface has a small x-height, he meant it culturally; when I say something along those lines it's generally from a functional perspective.

hhp

[dberlowgone]

I thought Trajan spoke Latin and Greek.

Cheers!

[stw]

Thank you very much. Much to read. But interesting discussion so far. Well, after reading it a bit I think you are right. Trajan does not have the same feel in every culture and a cyrillic Trajan might not look "classy" for russian readers.

I am searching a font for greeting cards, x-mas cards, deeds and so on. For the latin version we decided to use Trajan. So my problem is which font should i use than for the cyrillic version to achieve the same "classy" feel.

Or could you suggest an other font that works for both?

[William Berkson]

>a cyrillic Trajan might not look “classy” for russian readers.

So non-Russian readers tell you that it won't look "classy" and a Russian indicates that Russian readers and type designers do indeed think it looks "classy"--and you conclude that the non-Russian readers know more about what Russian readers will think than Russian readers do?