Menglei Xu Chinese characters have been written vertically in a top-to-bottom direction, with the columns continuing right to left, for more than three thousand years. But in modern times, this has gradually developed into a horizontal left-to-right direction due to the influence of letterpress printing and modernized language reform.
Throughout the history of Chinese writing, there has been an inextricable link between character formation and typography to the directional layout.
Menglei Xu’s presentation will analyze the following:
- The characteristics and structure of Chinese characters
- The history of the development of writing directions
- The relationship between structure and typographic direction as found in ancient oracle bone script, bronze inscriptions, small seal scripts, clerical scripts, and regular scripts
Finally, Xu will analyze character shape, typographic direction, and the layout of traditional Chinese writing in engraved printing matter.
This analysis may hold the key to the aesthetics of character formation and typography and provide some insights into the uniqueness of Chinese typography in current type design and typography.