Lavash, an Armenian-style typeface

Lavash is a Cyrillic typeface in the Armenian style. It includes Latin and Cyrillic letters, numerals, basic punctuation and a few math symbols.

Lavash is based on a piece of lettering I stumbled upon while searching for “Armenian-style font.” I don’t know of any other Cyrillic typefaces imitating the Armenian alphabet. Lavash seems to be the only one of its kind.

Most letters follow the original lettering. A few were slightly modified to work better as a digital font.

Armenian letters are distinguished by rounded shapes and long main strokes. To someone who doesn’t know the Armenian alphabet, they look like a collection of pipes bent in different ways.

Thanks to these simple shapes and the script’s kinship with Cyrillic, an Armenian-style typeface is fairly easy to make. Unlike Arabic script, for example, where each letter has to be drawn almost from scratch, Armenian letterforms often repeat. The font has no ligatures: it is too simple to need them, or kerning pairs for that matter.

Instead, some letters come in two versions, standard and simplified, because of the peculiar shapes in the original.

Lavash captures the flavor of Armenian letters. Its tall, rounded shapes immediately bring Armenia to mind.

Lavash is great for decorative work and fits Soviet-style posters and vintage postcards perfectly.

All the headings in my travel stories about Armenia are set in Lavash.

Lavash is free to use for any purpose, including commercial use.