Hiragana is a Japanese origin syllabary derived from Chinese character (Kanji). In this session, we would like to show you the flow of changes to current letter form from original Kanji which each of those was originated, and demonstrate the flow of brush stroke when a word is woven with the letters. Please kick back… Continue reading Stream of Kana: Japanese Kana Drawing Performance
Hanwen zhengkai is a famous regular type font born in Shanghai during the 1930s that consists of 11 sizes and styles, and is the first set of full type from the Republic of China era. Hanwen zhengkai was warmly received after its birth and was soon purchased by the Japanese Ashizawa Printing Shop and Kaneda… Continue reading The Spread, Influence and Redesign of Hanwen Zhengkai
The most evident, residual, and evoking parts of our memories are visual. Visual culture sets the tone for our familiarities and habits. When you grow up in a country like India and walk along streets painted, glued, and fixed with whimsical Bollywood posters, the disproportionate, hand written signs become second nature to your visual memory.… Continue reading A Type of Cure for Homesickness
Nepalbhasa was one of the major languages spoken in Feudal Kathmandu. Unlike the spoken Nepalbhasa, a generation of Newars grew up without the written aspect of language, as Newa scripts were in decline. After a long history of suppression from feudal rulers, the Newa scripts fell out of use due to fear of prosecution. However,… Continue reading Newa Scripts: From Manuscript to Digital
The Noto project is the most ambitious font project of all time, aiming to continually support 100 percent of all Unicode characters each year with fully functional fonts. Today, Noto offers fonts for 146 scripts and over 800 languages, and is opening the door to reading and writing for minority language speakers. During the last… Continue reading Noto Fonts: Preserving Endangered Languages
In recent years, Sina Fakour researched the impact of tools and technologies on the morphology of Arabic type. Fakour wrote her master’s thesis on the same subject, and critically analyzed the role of tools from reed pen to Unicode in social and political movements. In parallel, Fakour has been working on a platform dedicated to… Continue reading Arabic Type Platform and Online Reed Pen Simulator
What can we learn from Rosetta Stone in terms of multi-scriptural typography? This lecture will cover the topic of working within different writing systems from two perspectives: theoretical and educational. This talk will present categories taken into consideration while working in different alphabetical systems, such as the relation between two scripts and their distinctive features.… Continue reading Multi-Scriptural Typography
Hanwen zhengkai is a famous regular type font born in Shanghai during the 1930s that consists of 11 sizes and styles, and is the first set of full type from the Republic of China era. Hanwen zhengkai was warmly received after its birth and was soon purchased by the Japanese Ashizawa Printing Shop and Kaneda… Continue reading The Spread, Influence, and Redesign of Hanwen Zhengkai. China
As technology evolves, font technology does, too. However, hardware, software, and apps change much faster than fonts. Font foundries are facing a lot of challenges to make fonts compatible in various applications. Here are some problems we noticed: the compatibility of fonts and symbols; used on cross-script apps; how to determine default line spacing of… Continue reading Some problems happen on apps or user interfaces when applying Chinese fonts
Notions around Chinese type design tend to be elusive and lacking in sense. Inspired by Erik van Blokland’s TypeCooker project, we analyzed and located the crucial parameters in Chinese type design and created a TypeCooker for Hanzi or Chinese characters. Hanzi shares a few parameters with Latin: width, weight, contrast, and decorative parts. But to… Continue reading Hanzi Cooker