Soon

The book was designed by Latvian typographer and book designer Alexey Murashko, who has also extended Xavier Dupré’s Garalda to the Cyrillic script. The book was initially planned to be published in two editions, Latvian and English, with a third edition in Cyrillic released later. Alexey could have chosen a different typeface, but instead decided to continue using Garalda:

“You may reasonably ask,” he muses, “why it was necessary to adapt something, rather than choose a ready-made typeface with a Cyrillic character set. My answer is two-fold. First, when selecting a typeface, I’m a very thorough and picky typographer. And I felt that Garalda suited this project perfectly since it has a very pronounced taste, is not overly old-fashioned, and at the same time is calm and humanistic. And the italic is just brilliant! It has ligatures that literally look like fine handwriting. The second reason is that I enjoy a challenge and, quite often, Cyrillic-ready typefaces are still very limited (especially serifs), so I would rather expand the options myself.”

The publication is a tribute to the city of Riga and it comprises four strolls through the city in very different formats, including a selection of photographs of 20th century interwar Riga by the architect Nikolajs Hercbergs. The trilingual publication was introduced at the annual Latvian Book Fair at the Ķīpsala International Exhibition Centre in 2020.