Strasita is an art brand from Bulgaria whose “Strasita 2” symbol was originally designed by Bulgarian graphic artist Stefan Kanchev in 1965. The mark is catalogued among Kanchev’s extensive body of logo work, though it does not appear in the main gallery on the artist’s official website, which lists many of his other trademarks from the same period.
Design and History
Stefan Kirov Kanchev (1915-2001) was a Bulgarian graphic artist best known for his logo design work, authoring around 1,600 logos during his career. He is often referred to as the “father of Bulgarian graphic design” and the “master of the trademark” [1]. His clients included the National Palace of Culture, National Art Gallery, National Opera and Ballet, Bulgarian National Television, TZUM, International Fair Plovdiv, and Petrol AD [1].
The “Strasita 2” symbol is dated to 1965, a productive year for Kanchev that also produced marks for Bulgarian Television, the Rodopa meat combine, and the Balkan Film Festival in Varna [2]. The logo is described as an outline-style monogram incorporating a Bulgaria outline shape [3].
Meaning and Symbolism
Kanchev’s work was characterized by “rich imagination, clear composition, clean shapes, original artistic ideas that entirely fulfil the content of the work,” according to the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Encyclopaedia of Fine Arts in Bulgaria [1]. Critic Ivan Nenov wrote in 1961 that Kanchev’s trademarks were “entirely new, modern without being merely fashionable,” and that each could be “magnified to a monumental size or reduced to a miniature, and it will not lose neither its readability nor its graceful beauty” [1]. No specific documented meaning for the Strasita mark itself has been published.
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