The genesis of a new typeface often begins in the most unexpected environments. For designer Alyona Korysta, the foundational ideas for her latest project emerged in the autumn of 2024 during an internship at a French type design studio in Paris. Surrounded by the rich visual beauty of the French capital and examining typography on a daily basis, Korysta felt a growing creative urge to embark on a new type design journey.
While typeface briefs can take shape through a wide variety of conceptual processes, Korysta knew from the very beginning that she wanted to pursue something experimental. Her goal was to construct a meaningful dialogue between historical letterforms and contemporary design approaches, bridging centuries of graphic tradition with modern digital techniques.
More specifically, she sought to explore Vyaz, an ornamental, highly stylized writing style rooted in Byzantine culture that eventually played a significant role in the historical evolution of Ukrainian writing. In terms of character and aesthetic feel, Korysta was immediately drawn to letterforms that possessed a sharp, carved, and chiseled quality, evoking the permanence of stone masonry or metalwork rather than standard pen strokes.
Refining the System and Overcoming Early Hurdles
As she developed the concept further during her time in France, Korysta managed to digitize a first set of letters just as her internship was coming to an end. Gathering her courage, she decided to present the early glyphs to the studio team to ask for an honest critique. The feedback she received proved invaluable, but one specific observation stayed with her long after she left: "The logic is there, but it needs to be refined. Look at your ‘e’ and now at your ‘n’, how their weight is distributed. Once you resolve this, the system will work."
That moment served as a profound realization for the designer. She was forced to confront a common pitfall in parametric type design: how working too rigidly with modules can quietly undermine overall consistency, causing individual letterforms to drift apart in visual weight.
Korysta understood that if design rules are to be intentionally broken, that disruption must be purposeful, and typically, when one system is dismantled, another must replace it to maintain visual harmony. This realization prompted a messy, intensive phase of hand explorations—the kind of raw sketching that is rarely neat or tidy, yet remains essential for truly understanding the mechanics of a script.
Exploring Optical Sizes and the Second Breakthrough
With a much clearer sense of direction, Korysta moved on to digitizing different conceptual pathways, choosing a preferred trajectory, experimenting with proportions, and deciding which structural axes to push. She weighed several possibilities: should she create a heavily inked version with only minimal counterspace? Should she work with optical sizes by varying the level of abstraction across the letterforms? Or should she push the width of the characters to extremes?
After extensive experimentation, she concluded that working with optical size and pushing the level of abstraction offered the most compelling route for what she wanted to achieve. Initially, she worked with two distinct font styles without interpolation. Yet, even though the technical components seemed to be in place—allowing her to continue refining individual shapes and expanding the character set—she remained unsatisfied.
She continually questioned whether the design had reached its true potential. Something felt unresolved, though she could not immediately pinpoint what was missing. Consequently, she decided to step away from the project, leaving the digital files aside for a few weeks to gain fresh perspective.
When she eventually returned to the work, Korysta re-examined her reference mood board and her earliest sketches, where the foundational idea of letter deconstruction had been present from day one. She also revisited a personal digital photo folder titled "Letters from the streets," a collection she had amassed over time by photographing storefront signage—specifically old polyvinyl chloride (PVC) letters that gradually delaminate and warp under harsh weather conditions.
That photographic archive provided her second major breakthrough, acting as the missing piece of the puzzle. She realized she needed to design an additional master file composed entirely of structural bars: stripped of extraneous details, featuring simple strokes drawn in a very precise manner so that the complex shapes she had already envisioned could naturally emerge from them.
Shifting to Variable Technology and Finding the Proper Rhythm
This realization fundamentally transformed the architecture of the project. Instead of relying on two separate, static fonts, Korysta pivoted to a variable typeface format. Witnessing the very first variable test come to life on her screen marked an extraordinarily exciting turning point in the development cycle.
Revisiting her historical references and initial inspirations also helped her resolve a critical question regarding proportion. In traditional Vyaz lettering, spacing is a decisive factor in creating its uniquely decorative appearance. Specifically, the negative space between vertical stems is designed to be equal to the width of the stem itself, producing a distinctive, barcode-like visual rhythm that Korysta was determined to preserve.
Naturally, certain typographic compensations were required. Rounded letters demanded careful optical adjustments, while more deconstructed, fractured forms required more generous spacing to breathe. Nevertheless, this established a solid foundational starting point and a rigorous principle for managing rhythm throughout the character set.
From there, the workflow transitioned into a more standard rhythm of design, character set expansion, proofing, and continuous iteration. Alongside general legibility tests, a crucial part of the daily process involved carefully monitoring how the interpolation behaved. Korysta regularly returned to her initial vector drawings to keep the digital distortions under control and maintain the integrity of the design.
Naming the Typeface: The Inspiration of Dukat
As the project neared completion, the time arrived to select a proper name. A typeface of this complexity cannot simply remain an anonymous working file. Korysta returned once more to her historical sources—Vyaz manuscripts, ancient documents, and early coinage—and carefully examined the final collection of characters: highly decorative yet aggressively sharp.
She was soon reminded of the dukat (or dukach), a traditional Ukrainian women’s metal breast ornament traditionally crafted from a cascading row of historical coins, typically centered around an embossed medallion. With a recent revival of interest in traditional Ukrainian attire, these ornaments have been increasingly incorporated into modern fashion and contemporary styling. To the designer, the parallel felt entirely natural.
Just as one might instinctively recognize the name that suits a stranger, Korysta looked at her completed typeface and knew with certainty that it was Dukat.
The protracted process of bringing Dukat to life often mirrored the act of carving and chiseling stone, requiring the simultaneous sculpting of both physical letterforms and conceptual ideas. Navigating self-doubt, revisiting past decisions, embracing pivot points, and pushing experimental boundaries were all vital components of the journey. And as Korysta demonstrates, the realization of one ambitious idea ultimately clears the path for the next.
