Balkan Sans

About

Balkan Sans typeface system transliterates Croatian Latin into Serbian Cyrillic script and vice versa, depoliticising and reconciling two cultures with the aim of furthering communication, education, and, above all, tolerance.

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One ABuy
Amsterdam
Two ABuy
Bengaluru
Three ABuy
Copenhagen
Damascus

Design concept

Balkan is a bi-script Latin and Cyrillic typeface system rooted in the linguistic proximity of languages of former Yugoslavia (Bosnian, Montenegrin, Croatian and Serbian). The Balkan typeface system depoliticises and reconciles the scripts, for the sake of education, tolerance and, above all, communication. Balkan transliterates and translates Croatian Latin into Serbian Cyrillic and vice versa, thus the fonts serve as educational software capable of reconciling disparate scripts.

Balkan Sans font, design concept

Four styles

There are two styles of Balkan – style A situates the Latin characters on top, and Cyrillic at the bottom, while style B reverses this order. There are three more substyles (1, 2, 3) in option A – each with slightly different treatments of elements that exceed the bounding box of the words.

Balkan Sans font, four styles

Transliteration options

Originally, Balkan was developed for writing Serbian and Croatian, which share the same sounds. Later, we expanded Balkan to also include other Cyrillic- and Latin-based languages, which was a complex task as there are a large number of these, and there is no single agreed standard for its transliteration into Latin script. We reviewed the most common romanisation schemes to create OpenType Stylistic Sets that encompass most common options for transliterating Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian and Ukrainian letters into English and German.

Balkan Sans font, Transliteration options

  • AwardsTDC Typographic Excellence 2012, Special Jury Award at 23rd Biennal of Design Slovenia 2012, Typographica Favorite Typefaces of 2012, Grand Prix Croatian Designers Society 2016
  • Released2012

Cyrillic

  • Rusyn
  • Kazakh
  • Russian
  • Abaza
  • Buryat
  • Dargin
  • Kabardian
  • Komi
  • Bulgarian
  • Chechen
  • Kirghyz
  • Macedonian
  • Ossetic
  • Serbian
  • Tajik (Cyrillic)
  • Ukrainian
  • Belarusian
  • Yakut
  • Abkhaz
  • Dolgan
  • Kalmyk
  • Adyghe
  • Avar
  • Dungan
  • Balkar
  • Karakalpak
  • Mordvin (Moksha)
  • Nivkh
  • Enets
  • Ingush
  • Itelmen
  • Kumyk
  • Azeri (Cyrillic)
  • Bashkir
  • Selkup
  • Nanai
  • Nenets
  • Lak
  • Lezgian
  • Mordvin (Erzya)
  • Tabasaran
  • Altai
  • Chukcha
  • Chuvash
  • Yupik
  • Even
  • Khanty
  • Koryak
  • Manci
  • Nogai
  • Tuva
  • Tatar
  • Uighur
  • Rutul
  • Tuvan
  • Moldovan
  • Mari
  • Aghul
  • Evenki
  • Khakas
  • Mansi
  • Nganasan
  • Tsakhur
  • Udmurt
  • Kildin Sami

Latin

  • English
  • Comorian
  • Luba-Kasai
  • Marquesan
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • Italian
  • Haitian
  • Estonian
  • German
  • Friulian
  • Galician
  • French
  • Finnish
  • Fijian
  • Frisian
  • Luxemburgish
  • Spanish
  • Swahili
  • Breton
  • Bislama
  • Basque
  • Afar
  • Afrikaans
  • Zulu
  • Tetum
  • Portuguese
  • Norwegian
  • Swedish
  • Catalan
  • Polish
  • Slovak
  • Czech
  • Maltese
  • Albanian
  • Indonesian
  • Irish Gaelic
  • Latvian
  • Lithuanian
  • Slovene
  • Rhaeto-Romanic
  • Hungarian
  • Sorbian
  • Kurdish
  • Hawaiian
  • Esperanto
  • Welsh
  • Sámi (Northern)
  • Faroese
  • Greenlandic
  • Icelandic
  • Croatian
  • Romanian
  • Romani
  • Turkish
  • Bosnian
  • Phonetics
  • Sámi (Inari)
  • Sámi (Lule)
  • Sámi (Southern)
  • Vietnamese
  • Azeri (Latin)
  • Interlingua
  • Sanskrit transliteration
  • Malay
  • Māori
  • Turkmen
  • Uzbek
  • Tagalog (Filipino)
  • Malagasy
  • Crimean Tatar
  • Guaraní
  • Kashubian
  • Xhosa
  • Silesian
  • Cornish
  • Manx
  • Oromo
  • Somali (Latin)
  • Aymara
  • Ganda
  • Ido
  • Javanese
  • Gikuyu
  • Kinyarwanda
  • Kirundi
  • Kongo
  • Kwanyama
  • Nauruan
  • Navajo
  • Ndebele (Northern)
  • Ndebele (Southern)
  • Quechua
  • Samoan
  • Shona
  • Sotho
  • Sundanese
  • Tahitian
  • Tongan
  • Tsonga
  • Tswana
  • Twi
  • Wolof
  • Yoruba
  • Cheyenne
  • Chichewa
  • Kiribati
  • Swati
  • Pinyin
  • Arabic transliteration
  • Ladin
  • Igbo
  • Karelian
  • Veps
  • Chamorro
  • Marshallese
  • Montenegrin
  • Náhuatl
  • Norfuk
  • Occitan
  • Papiamento
  • Pedi
  • Sardinian
  • Seychelles Creole
  • Tok Pisin
  • Tuvalu
  • Aromanian
  • Ga
  • Gagauz
  • Ulithian
  • Venda
  • Chokwe
  • Chuukese
  • Kituba
  • Lingala
  • Maninka
  • Nyanja
  • Otomi
  • Palauan
  • Rarotongan
  • Sango
  • Temne
  • Umbundu
  • Bemba
  • Gwich’in
  • Scottish Gaelic
  • Tokelauan
  • Aranese
  • Cofán
  • Pictograms
  • Norn
  • Romaji
  • Old Norse
  • Chiquitano
  • Araona
  • Cavineña
  • Ayoreo

  • Ж
    Ж

    Serbian transliteration

    ss01

    This Stylistic Set replaces the standard transliteration of Russian letters with its Serbian equivalent.
  • Щ
    Щ

    Alternative Romanisation

    ss02

    Since Cyrillic is used by dozens of languages, there is no single standard for its transliteration into Latin script. This stylistic set offers alternative romanisation for transliterating Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian and Ukrainian letters into English and other Latin-based languages.
  • Щ
    Щ

    Alternative Romanisation 2

    ss03

    Since Cyrillic is used by dozens of languages, there is no single standard for its transliteration into Latin script. This stylistic set offers alternative romanisation for transliterating Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian and Ukrainian letters into English and other Latin-based languages.
  • Ъ
    Ъ

    Alternative hard signs

    ss04

    Cyrillic hard sign has no phonetic value of its own an can be represented in various ways. This stylistic set provides some options.