Khudozhestvenny Cinema

From AIGA’s Eye on Design blog:

Design challenge: create a wordmark for the more than 20-character long name of a cherished cultural institution. In 2019, Anna Kulachek, art director of Moscow’s Strelka Institute, commissioned Contrast Foundry to do just that for the landmark Khudozhestvenny Cinema. The project addressed a reconstruction of architect Fyodor Schechtel’s 1909 facade and signage, partially lost in the Soviet era when elements of neoclassical decor—including elegant bas-relief chariots flanking the theater’s name—were knocked off. The client liked the first sketches of the letterforms so much that they requested an entire typeface to use in developing the brand identity.

Contrast Foundry’s Liza Rasskazova found her design inspiration in the Moscow Metro. She was especially intrigued by the vaguely Art Deco-ish serif letterforms on the signage at the Komsomolskaya station of the Sokolnicheskaya line, as they were noticeably different from the various sans serifs seen at most other stations.

On the Contrast Foundry website, Liza Rasskazova writes:

I vividly remembered not even the main sign, but the letters above the colonnade in the eastern part of the station’s entrance hall. I was inspired by the elegant letter Я, reminiscent of the R in the New Yorker logo, and the unusual proportions—a very narrow M, a wide A—the widths of the letters tend to unify. That’s when I had the idea to try and make a font based on that lettering and the elusive Soviet art deco.

In September 2022, CoFo Cinema1909 was released for general licensing. In the cinema identity, it is paired with CoFo Sans.