Design and typeset: The Current State of Folk Icon Painting

Book Design for the Translation of Nikodim P. Kondakov’s Text on Iconography. Published Summer 2022. Illustratated by Michele Foletti

This edition presents a Czech translation of an early 20th-century text by Nikodim P. Kondakov, the first professor of art history in Russia, exploring the preservation of traditional icon “writing.” The translation is accompanied by three critical essays that provide historical and scholarly context.

The book’s typographic design draws inspiration from the Cyrillic alphabet, reflecting the cultural and linguistic heritage of the original text. The title page, influenced by early 20th-century book layouts, reinforces the historical framework of Kondakov’s work while maintaining a clean and structured design for contemporary readability.

By blending historical influences with modern typesetting, the design pays tribute to the text’s origins while making it accessible to today’s readers.

This book is part of the project: Potential of Migration. The Contribution of (Not Only) Russian Emigrants to Interwar Europe (Today), supported by Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TA ČR).