Faux Soviet Meme #4

To close out my "Super Soviet" series, I thought I would lift something from Wikipeda, where all text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Graphic designers sometimes employ faux Cyrillic typography to give a Soviet or Russian feel to text, by replacing Latin letters with Cyrillic letters resembling them in appearance. A simple way to accomplish this is to replace capital letters R and N with Cyrillic Я and И, for some "Яussiaи flavor". Other examples include Ш for W, Ц for U, Г for r, Ф for O, Д for A, and Ч or У for Y.

This effect is usually restricted to text set in all-caps. In Cyrillic typography, most upright lowercase letters resemble smaller uppercase letters, unlike the more distinctive forms of Latin-alphabet type (cursive Cyrillic letters are more differentiated).

This is a common Western trope used in book covers, film titles, comic book lettering, and artwork for computer games which are set in the Soviet Union or Russian Federation. An early example was the logo for Norman Jewison's film The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming. It is important to note that not all names with Cyrillic-like characters in them are Faux Cyrillic; an example is the imitation of small children's erroneous writing of mirrored letters, such as the mirrored "R" in the Toys Я Us toy store name.It should be noted that none of the Cyrillic characters are pronounced the same way as their Roman lookalikes.

For example the Cyrillic letter "Я" looks like the Latin "R" but the actual Russian pronunciation is /ja/ as in "yard".

To us monolinguists, this is still fairly neat.


Source:

Faux Cyrillic. (2006, June 10). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 06:20, June 24, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Faux_Cyrillic&oldid=57799210.

Tags: Soviet CCCP memes Cyrillic

Faux Soviet Meme #3

Rathergood is the site that brought us Viking Kittens, "Ninja"and Spongmonkeys who love the moon. Classics all.

And what goes on behind the scenes at Rathergood? See the CCCP inspired clip, if you dare: http://www.rathergood.com/katjusha/

Tags:Soviet CCCP memes Kittens Rathergood

Faux Soviet Meme #2

The second installment of "Not real but fake Soviet type stuff on the web" is from our friends at Tiki Bar TV. Episode 9 of their popular video podcast or "vodcast" reminds us that Russian men in fezs can not be trusted.

The redesigned Tiki bar site is great, and the embedded links makes sharing fun!



Tags:Soviet CCCP memes Tiki TikiBarTV

Faux Soviet Meme #1

There is a minor thread running through many offerings on the internet. Beneath the Ninja/Pirate conflict, more subtle than serpents on a cessna, there lies the desire to be a cold war commie.

This is an apolitcal desire. Not a retreat from capitalism, but merely a love of fur hats, vodka and an alphabet that kinda looks like ours, but isnt really.

I present the first in a series of Faux Soviet findings on the web. This isn't ment to be an exhaustive list, just a good one.

First up is a Big Rock Beer ad made by Darren Robert Lee and Jason Kniss. This is not on You Tube, so you have to click the link. Old skool. Note how they translate "Beautiful" as "Kournikova."

http://members.shaw.ca/jkniss/Revolution.wmv

Tags:Soviet CCCP memes Big Rock