Stefan Kanchev, the true icon and “father” of Bulgarian graphic design, was born on August 6, 1915 in Kalofer with his father being an iconographer. He studied mural painting in the National Art Academy between 1940 and 1945 in the class of prof. Dechko Uzunov.

Stefan Kanchev was active in all the areas of applied arts, doing numerous covers of books with folklore fairytales, posters, trade marks, postcards, advertisements, forms and envelopes, post stamps, labels and packages.

During his career he took part in many exhibitions and biennales in Bulgaria and abroad: Ljubljana,  Brno, Warsaw,  Moscow, Berlin, Budapest, Belgrade and more. In the first world exhibition of trade marks in New York he presented 23 works out of the 250 logos by authors from all over the world. He had solo exhibitions in Sofia, Moscow, Prague, Berlin, Warsaw, Budapest and anniversary exposition in Sofia in 1975. He won numerous competitions for typefaces, posters, trademarks, postcards, telegram forms, book designs.  Until nowadays his works are world-famous and cited in the major applied arts books and publications. Stefan Kanchev died on August 22nd, 2001 at the age of 86.

Let us present you some of his trademarks:

Balkancar

Balkan airlines

Bulgarian National Television, 1959, partitially still in use

Bulgarian Posts, still in use

Lebed Sofia

International Fair Plovdiv, still in use

International Folklore Festival

Meat factory Rodopa

New Dramatic theatre Sofia

Five pointed start Sevlievo

Petrol, still in use

Sofia Press

Union of Bulgarian Artists UBA, still in use

Theatre Sofia, still in use

Sofia puppet theatre, still in use

Central Universal Store

It is not a miracle that both books about his work are sold out for quite a long time now. We have all fingers crossed for a new edition of the books, since they a must have for every design lover.

Stefan Kanchev Logo Book

Nowadays you can still find some of his great works as pins and tote bags.

Stefan Kanchev pins

Images of trademarks courtesy of  http://socmus.com