Wei-Hsiang Su Since 1915, Taiwan’s type design has been influenced by Chinese Regular Script and Japanese Mingti typefaces, with Japanese influence strengthening through phototypesetting equipment sourcing and 1980s computerization. In the 1990s, type designer Sammy Or [1] reintroduced Chinese calligraphic ideas into digital typefaces, creating widely-used designs.
Today, Taiwanese type design continues to oscillate between Chinese and Japanese aesthetic traditions. Creating a unique Taiwanese identity remains challenging due to Hanzi’s complexity and the loss of artifacts during periods of political upheaval and rapid modernization.
Taiwanese designers, including Chia-Hsing Ho [2], advocate for a “cultural plasticizing” approach, identifying unique elements of everyday life and building a database of local motifs.
justfont has established a design process to support this vision and promote it among collaborating designers:
・ Curating historical typefaces, including those from newspapers, magazines, advertisements, calligraphy, and street signage, and categorizing them by writing tools, usage contexts, and geographical regions.
・Emphasizing hand-drawing techniques in the conceptual phase to replicate early creators’ methods using tools like paintbrushes.
・After creating over 300 foundational characters covering essential radicals, AI simulates the remaining characters, providing layout composition references that help designers extend consistent styles for unfamiliar Hanzi [3].
In our presentation, we will cover historical developments since 1915, recent advancements in creating distinctly Taiwanese typefaces, and our approach combining traditional hand-drawing methods with AI technologies. Additionally, we will share our vision for the future, including our work on establishing a comprehensive typeface database.
[1] Sammy Or 柯熾堅, Hong Kong type designer who was the type director of DynaComware, Taiwan’s largest digital type foundry.
[2] Chia-Hsing Ho 何佳興, Taiwanese designer, AGI (Alliance Graphique Internationale) member since 2017.
[3] Typefaces created in such approach: justfont’s Lan Yang Ming(2022), Kamabit(2025) and type designer Guan Ying Chen’s Lit Hue(2025)