Soviet official typefaces — Typophile archive

ivandurakov23 October 2007 · 16:36

Can anyone ID the typefaces in the attachments? Most 1970s-80s vintage, but usage probably predates by decades. I apologize for the quality, it was the best I could do given the relative scarcity of surviving material within reach.

1. SovietBookText.jpg: typical body text face found in virtually every Soviet textbook, also used in newspapers, other official publications.

2. GOST1.jpg: Title block on state standards/specs documents.

3. GOST2.jpg: Alternate title block on state standards/specs documents.

4. PravdaRadio.jpg: used in text boxes in Pravda, in this case the extensive TV and radio schedule.

5. PravdaMasthead.jpg: The (in)famous Pravda masthead, still used at the tabloid successor, pravda.ru; same typeface was also used for Red Star (Krasnaya Zvezda); have never seen it anywhere else, but was wondering if an entire typeface character set was ever developed.

Thanks in advance.

Attachment	Size
SovietBookText.jpg	304.57 KB
GOST1.jpg	88.35 KB
GOST2.jpg	96.9 KB
PravdaRadio.jpg	301.2 KB
PravdaMasthead.jpg	641.43 KB

brandons

1. and 3. look a lot like Romana.

Mark Simonson

One book I have says that Romana was a German variant of DeVinne. There was an H. Berthold face from around 1900 called Lateinisch which was even more similar, including the serif at the top of the A. Probably it's a cyrillic adaptation of that style.

I've seen Art Nouveau faces similar to the Pravda masthead, but I think it was probably custom.

Hey, look! Oprah is mentioned! Are you sure this is authentic? (Just kidding.)