Scandal: a stolen font was used on the Ukrainian banknote
On the new 1000 hryvnia banknote, which will go into circulation in October, Internet users noticed a stolen font, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Designer Bogdan Gdal announced this on Facebook.
Designer noticed a discrepancy between some of the letter shapes of the font in the spelling of “One thousand hryvnia” and the official ones - Bickham Script Pro 3. He explained that this font was created by designer Richard Lipton in 1997, later Adobe licensed it, and until 2016 the font did not have any official Cyrillic version.
“During a visual analysis and an attempt to find the “tails” of such a discrepancy, a series of fonts with the names Bickham Script One, Bickham Script Two, Bickham Script Three, signed with the name of a certain Russian woman Alexandra Goffman, was found on the Internet. As it turned out, she is quite well known in font circles as the author of stolen versions of fonts, which she signed with her name and then distributed for free without the permission of the authors. She made a series of stolen Bickham Script in 2005,” Gdal explained.
The designer contacted Lipton. He redirected Gdal to another type designer who works at Adobe, Franco Grieshamer, who replied: “Before the release of the Bickham Script Pro 3 font in 2016, there was not a single official Cyrillic version of the font. However, I once came across a pirated sample in 2012 on a candy package in a Russian supermarket in Germany.”
When asked whether Adobe will demand that the NBU buy this font or compensate for losses, Grieshamer replied that for this purpose new printed banknotes should be created with a licensed version of the font.
“I can't comment on this. To fix this problem, entirely new printed forms of banknotes would have to be created, which is probably not that easy to do (I've never printed money myself, but I can imagine it's not a simple process). The damage is done - if you have contacts at the National Bank of Ukraine, it might be a good idea to let them know about the problem. Thank you,” wrote an Adobe representative.
Gdal noted that the stolen version of the font was also used in the new 20 hryvnia banknote, which was presented last year. “And it looks like it should be used on updates to the entire hryvnia model range in denominations of 20, 100, 500 and 1000 hryvnia,” the designer added.
On October 25, 2019, the National Bank introduced into circulation a banknote of a new highest denomination - 1 hryvnia. By October 000, coins in denominations of 1, 1 and 2 kopecks will be withdrawn from circulation. Also, the 5-kopeck coin will be gradually withdrawn from circulation.
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