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Ukraine designed its own national typeface so it doesn’t have to use Russian fonts

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Ukraine has had enough of Russian fonts.

Amid the country’s invasion by Russia, Ukrainians will no longer have to read any official documents set in a Russian typeface after a just-unveiled typeface goes into full effect. The new national font is called Zakon, “law” in Ukrainian.

Designers, military personnel, and Ukrainian citizens have for years called for their country to swap out Russian-designed Cyrillic fonts like Izhitsa, which appears on official documents, certificates, awards, diplomas, battle flags, and plaques, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture. Though the Russian font and others are widely used in Ukraine, they’re designed by the Russian type foundry ParaType , which Ukraine’s ministry says cooperates with Russian authorities.

To change that, Ukraine’s government and the country’s largest online jobs board partnered to hire a team of Ukrainian type designers to make something imbued with the country’s typographic heritage.…

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