Kyiv Metro is changing the design of station names from a Stalinist to a Ukrainian typeface

Following the decommunization of Kyiv metro stations previously named after Russian figures and Soviet ideas, Ukrainian designers emphasized the need to avoid Stalinist typefaces. Ukrainian type designer and activist Bohdan Hdal created new typefaces and models for the metro stations and documented his creative process on his Facebook page.

“Typefaces at different stations represent an intersection of eras and stages in the development of the Kyiv Metro. The first metro stations were designed with a Stalinist serif typeface imported from Moscow. Later, local experiments attempted to create a distinctive geometric font for the Kyiv Metro’s blue line. Each architect added their unique touch. In the digital era, things were done in a hasty and careless manner for some stations, and designers often settled for the first available option, e.g. Arial font. How to handle this and what direction to follow is a separate discussion,” says the designer.

 Bohdan Hdal’s archive

Hdal says that he is now in the process of creating and producing letters based on the 2D designs that he created during the summer. The letters will be molded into full-size shapes; then, a contractor will hand them over to the Metro for installation at the renamed stations.

 fragment of the image, Bohdan Hdal’s archive

In a comment to Chytomo, Hdal clarified that he had started designing the typeface for the station formerly known as Ploshcha L’va Tolstoho (now Ploshcha Ukraïns’kykh Heroïv) in 2023, well ahead of the official approval of its new name, but with the expectation of it being approved.

Hdal is leading the initiative to create new typefaces for metro stations. “It was important to me, and I started doing it with the hope that I would be able to promote this idea. It resonated with my core values and was fueled by my intrinsic motivation,” he said.

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Bohdan Hdal is a Ukrainian graphic and type designer, public activist, and former journalist. He is the co-founder of “Rukotvory”, a Ukrainian folk art project, and the author of several commercial and free typefaces and font families. He has been creating typefaces since 2010, and some of them are used by the Ukrainian government organizations.

Translation: Valeriia Chepiha

Copy editing: Tanya Mykhaylychenko