Rufus Musical typeface and manual typesetting method jointly are a manifestation of a brave idea: the music publishers and engravers shall repossess what was once theirs. Now for the first time in the computer era they have the chance to set notation with noncompound symbols. For the first time the type designer, the engraver and the publisher have full control over the look of their music faces and typography in their music.
In the historically crossing, but nowadays completely parallel worlds of setting texts and music, for decades there has been no sharp solution to the marriage of two systems. Yet the challenge has been resolved and a thoroughly tested solution manifests in a series of piano editions, the so called Manual Engraving Series, engraved in compliance with a unique music engraving method* discovered by Savva Terentyev, employing Rufus Musical typeface designed by Eugene Yukechev. And now you can enjoy their mutual typographical genesis.
The Manual Engraving Series’ design manifests in reciprocity of text and music typography, and even letter names of musical notes. The prominent realisation of the latter idea is in the front and back covers of the editions in the series, where pieces of music from the editions are set in respective Latin letter names of the notes, thus creating a unique combination of symbols, typographically and content-wize, on the cover of each new edition.
Another peculiarity in the design of the series is the modular grid, which was calculated from the “space” — the distance between the closest two lines in the music stave. All the mathematics in the design template depend on that (“space”) module: the Fibonacci sequence which defined the page format, the choice of font size and leading relation, as well as the relations between the elements of the format of the editions. Even the calculations of horizontal spacing of notes are partly dependent on the grid.
The Manual Engraving Series’ design manifests in reciprocity of text and music typography, and even letter names of musical notes. The prominent realisation of the latter idea is in the front and back covers of the editions in the series, where pieces of music from the editions are set in respective Latin letter names of the notes, thus creating a unique combination of symbols, typographically and content-wize, on the cover of each new edition.
The distinctiveness of the project lies in its combination of two writing systems—musical notation and Latin script. Central to the graphics was my typeface Casus, whose graphical features have been seamlessly integrated into the traditional forms of musical symbols. This approach not only enhances expressiveness but also creates a cohesive graphic unity, establishing the typographic harmony of the music series published by Terentyev Publishing. As a result, the collection of texts and musical notations achieves a sense of homogeneity, presenting each publication as a cohesive work of art.
