Friday 19 August 2011

This mesto in Salisbury


On a flying visit to Salisbury for my brother-in-law's birthday party, I spotted this interesting typography for a vodka bar name (clearly alluding to the Korova bar in A Clockwork Orange) on the way into the city. I like the way the first character of the first word throws you into thinking it's a sigma, even if the second one, "БАЯ", slightly loses subtlety points by falling into the cliche of using a "Я" ("Ya") to represent "R" in pseudo-Cyrillic.

- Ray

2 comments:

  1. I always find this sort of thing very difficult to read (I suspect that superficial familiarity with Greek and Cyrillic alphabets makes it harder, rather than easier).

    The second word, "bar" is easy enough. But what is that first word? It reads to me as "Sogovo" or "Solovo" at first glance, but on looking at it more closely ... "Moloko"?

    Perhaps it's time to take your hint and reread A clockwork orange, which I have't revisited dince about ... oh ... 1966...

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  2. The first word took me a while too. It's nothing as complicated: although the word isn't English, no non-English characters are involved.

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