Dimiter Stoykov – Accordion album art
Uncredited sleeve design for an album by Bulgarian folk musician and accordionist Dimiter Stoykov (Димитър Стойков, b. 1931), released by state label Balkanton in 1974. The symmetrical illustration featuring doves and flowers is accompanied by multiscript typography: while the Latin part is set in Aurora-Grotesk VII, the Cyrillic text is shown in two typefaces that, to my knowledge, didn’t offer official support for this script.
Spelling out the album title with glyphs from Gill Kayo was the easier part: all letters in “aкордеон” (“accordion”) could be approximated by repurposing Latin letters: akopgeoH. In Bulgarian Cyrillic, the lowercase letter д (de) can look similar or identical to a Latin single-story g. The only required hack was to make a small cap H for the Cyrillic н (en). For the artist’s name in Tintoretto, the designers had to get more creative: Д (De) is a modified A, and М (Em) and Ъ (hard sign) are completely new creations. Letraset sheets didn’t include a breve accent for й (short i) – but a dot was deemed good enough.
2 Comments on “Dimiter Stoykov – Accordion album art”
They could have tried an outline triangle with a cedilla-like protrusion to represent the “d” sound. I would never have been able to see a lowercase “g” working like that.
My understanding is that this form of д is only acceptable in Bulgarian Cyrillic. In that specific context, it’s perfectly common. Here’s “aкордеон” in three typefaces by Bulgarian designers – Ka Callista, Quasimoda, and Kometa: