§ 159. Introduction of the rouble sign

There used to be no need for a special rouble sign.

On 1 July, 2007, the Federal Statute on the Central Bank of the Russian Federation came into effect and called for introduction of a graphic symbol for indicating rouble amounts. Experts were baffled by it, to say the least. It meant just this: either professional designers took the lead in finding the sign, or everyone would once again end up having to use something disturbingly lame (take a look at Russian paper currency, and the type design in particular).

The group of initiators included Design Depo, Designet, Direct Design, Imadesign, Letterhead, Paratype, and Art. Lebedev Studio. The summer of 2007 saw active communication and exchange of analytic and graphic findings among them. This resulted in selecting the sign that all the initiators were happy with. It was presented to public on August 1, 2007.

It must be stressed that the new symbol has no author, and there are no limitations as to copying and modifying. The sign was designed and selected according to objective criteria. It is not protected by intellectual property laws.

Within the first three weeks, almost four hundred design companies throughout the country joined the campaign. During the following year and a half, the rouble sign appeared both online and offline.

The Central Bank of Russia has indirectly encouraged the use of the new symbol by announcing that Russian currency can be indicated by upper-case letter P with a period— “P.” This intermediate version allows designers to prepare the audience for wider use of the new sign.

Since the agreement, each of the fonts produced by the leading type design companies includes the new rouble symbol.

The only thing the sign lacks at the moment is the frequency of use. Most clients can’t help it and do not approve designs featuring the rouble sign, because they haven’t seen it anywhere before. A new symbol wins wide acceptance once the number of pioneers using it grows large enough. The majority of people will be ready to support the idea of the rouble sign after it appears in ads, menus, on price tags, etc. Whether the new sign is recognized depends on daring designers and daring businessmen.

The rouble sign makes a worthy complement to the currently used abbreviations р. and руб., and presents another design option.

Designers can use the helpful Opentype file rouble.otf. It includes rouble signs for the most popular fonts.

Letters are assigned to font styles applied to the symbol. In order to set the rouble sign in Tahoma Regular, a designer should select the Rouble font and type i.

The rouble sign may precede the number, like the dollar symbol. However, when used in Russian text, it must always appear after the number and be separated from it by a whitespace.