Willie Liu Invented by the renowned Chinese novelist Lin Yutang in the late 1940s, “Ming Kwai” Chinese Typewriter has been a legendary piece of invention, though the only existing prototype of this machine has been lost. Through its ingenious character sorting system and intricate mechanical structure, this device claims to have tackled the challenges of typesetting and character inputting for the complex Chinese writing system, comprising of thousands of glyphs, long before the coming of computers. In the past few years, a team of individuals from various backgrounds such as mechanical engineering, history, typography, and computer graphics, have strived to rebuild the device through a thorough study of its patent documents and hands-on experimentations.
As a type designer and researcher, I participated in this multi-disciplinary project and was in charge of character encoding analysis, keyboard/input method restoration, and font reproduction, etc. The result is to recreate a usable digital font out of the limited resources before me and the work aims not only to faithfully restore the details of the typewriter font with its kinks and perks, but also to support the team to actually build the machine. The font digitalizing process sheds new light on the exaggerations and inaccuracies in previous understanding this marvelous machine while uncovering unmentioned highlights. The remake of the Ming Kwai typewriter showcases Lin’s visionary creativity, as well as the potential and contingencies inherent in the machine that invite us to rethink the landscape of the printing industry and Chinese computing in the information age. Additionally, the project also provides valuable insights into Chinese font design, which is my primary field of work.