Scandal surrounding the new banknote: National Bank accused of using stolen Russian font on 2000 hryvnia banknote

Scandal surrounding the new banknote: National Bank accused of using stolen Russian font on 2000 hryvnia banknote

The National Bank of Ukraine has become embroiled in a high-profile scandal over the design of the new 2000 hryvnia banknote, which was found to use an unlicensed font design of Russian origin.

This was stated by font designer Bohdan Hdal.

According to the expert, during the creation of the design for the banknote featuring the 1960s poet Vasyl Stus, a pirated Cyrillic modification of the Bickham Script font was used. This unlicensed version was developed by Russian designer Aleksandra Gofman.

Bohdan Hdal noted that a similar incident had already occurred in 2019, when the National Bank issued the 1000 hryvnia banknote. At that time, the developers also used a pirated version of Bickham Script. The designer provided images of the inscriptions on both banknotes, confirming their visual identity.

The expert explained that the original Bickham Script font was created in 1997 by designer Richard Lipton, after which the rights were acquired by Adobe. Russian designer Aleksandra Gofman released her own unlicensed Cyrillic adaptation in 2005, while the official Cyrillic version from Adobe was only released in 2016. According to Hdal, it is the pirated version that appears on the Ukrainian banknotes.

The font designer also added that Aleksandra Gofman has a reputation as an author of stolen fonts, as she has marked others’ works with her own name and distributed them without the consent of the rights holders.

As of the time of publication, the management of the National Bank of Ukraine and its head, Andriy Pyshnyi, have not commented on the origin of the lettering on the new banknote.

The new 2000 hryvnia banknote was presented during a briefing on Friday, July 10. The banknote is designed in purple tones and features an image of poet Vasyl Stus and the main building of Donetsk National University, which bears his name. In addition, the banknote includes the artist’s signature and lines from his poem: «A candle flickers with the dawn that our great-grandson will call day».

Scandal surrounding the new banknote: National Bank accused of using stolen Russian font on 2000 hryvnia banknote