As part of the Herb Lubalin Lecture Series, Oleksii Chekal will give a history of the rich tradition and the evolution of the Ukrainian Cyrillic letterform from the perspective of calligraphy and typography.

Register here for the online talk.

Oleksii Chekal, is a designer, calligrapher and art historian who lives in Ukraine. He studied in the Kyiv Art School, the Kharkiv State School of Art and the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts. He began his graphic design career as founder and artistic director of PanicDesign — a design studio in Ukraine.

He has been a lecturer at the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts and British Higher School of Design. Occasionally he is a visiting professor at the Florence Classical Arts Academy and hasconducted numerous workshops on calligraphy and lettering in Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Italy, France, Great Britain etc.

He's had several exhibitions of his calligraphic work in Europe (Florence, Paris, Palermo, Pratovecchio, Lublin etc). The core interests of his art historian practice focuses on the early Christian art of Byzantium, Syria and Europe.

During the Russian-Ukrainian war, he has made every effort to help the resistance and Ukrainian armed forces, and also to continue to contribute to the visual culture of Ukrainian identity.