Bulgaria Moderna Pro Font

The Modern Medieval

Small nations have a tendency to overestimate their contributions to humanity. Being a Bulgarian, I’ve heard countless stories extolling the uniqueness of my brethren, from petty (We invented yogurt!) to ludicrous (We were the first people in the Universe!). But there’s one thing we can be unabashedly proud of: We are among the few peoples who created their own script.

Granted, we named it after a Greek guy (Saint Cyril), and we made the mistake to open source it. Eventually the Russians borrowed it, didn’t give us proper credit, and this is why today the Cyrillic alphabet is known as Russian. This slightly pisses us off, but not too much. The mere fact that once upon a time our culture was so vibrant that it spilled its goods far and wide gives us self-esteem in times when, far too often, we feel peripheral and insignificant.

This font—my typographic debut—is an homage to the scholars at the Preslav Literary School, who created something that transcended borders and stood the test of time. I worked on it for more than two years, covering almost all alphabets supported in Unicode 6.1 (see the long list below). Currently, Bulgaria Moderna Pro consists of 1712 glyphs.

The font has been licensed multiple times and graces the covers of many wonderful books. Its letters were even carved on a monument. You can read more about its history here.