Hanzi (漢字)

I think the most important aspect about fonts is that they convey words

If you ask students why they use a certain font

most students don't know the answer

When I used Word, I used to pick whatever font I wanted to use

Which ever I liked was fine

I thought that as long as I bold this thin looking font

the characters can be used as heading font

It's absolutely not the case

Strictly speaking, not many people pay attention to fonts

Most people only care whether the words show up on paper

During former President Obama's presidential campaign in 2008

he used the font Gotham font

It was the first time a candidate paid such attention to fonts

The inspiration of this design came from the fonts on

shop signs in Manhattan

it's a font originated from urban America

One thing I love about living in Taiwan or Hong Kong is

I walk down the street and there's all these ads

And I like them

Why do I, it's not really I like the ads really

Is that I like the Chinese characters

I think they look nice

They make everything look nicer

Fonts are all around us

and they require design

Looking at them

You might not be able to understand how incredible fonts are

But when you write them you'll find out

how much work the font designers put into them

When you study the stories behind fonts

You'll discover that these fonts

they really exist for particular reasons

There's a purpose for its elaborateness

When you explore these reasons you'll find out that

human beings encounter many problems in life

the process of solving these problems

is expressed in something as insignificant as fonts

That's the most interesting part

Allow me to give you guys a briefing on why we're here today

many fonts can be spotted in public

This calligraphy is called Weibei font

Weibei comes in many types

Many Weibei computer fonts are based on this original version

allowing users to apply to multiple situations

hence the font can't be as freely formed as its calligraphy version

This is a basic difference between fonts and calligraphy

Traditional glass doors were hand-painted

vinyl cutting wasn't available in the past, so paint was used

Usually the reversed text was painted in gold on the other side

then a red contour was applied

So this is a pretty traditional style

Even though this is already a vinyl cutting, they kept the old design

The "Chaoyang" sign you can see right there

It's in Mingti and painted by a signage artisan

The style is pretty interesting

For example, the left part of the right character

It's not round, but instead more angular

this is different from the Mingti we usually see

making it a unique design

You can check out the conventional Mingti on the iPad

I like to use shop signs as an introduction to font knowledge

A Chinese Font Walk appeals to

young people's curiosity about their surroundings

We often see fonts in public spaces

We might care when or where a font is used

However, letting people forget about its existence should be a font's natural state

For example, you would only look at signs when

you're looking for an escape door in a hotel

How to use a font

For example what kind of font to use for headings

or what kind of font to use for texts

In the past most people didn't have any idea, so they used them incorrectly

You might have heard that the Taoyuan International Airport

uses Times New Roman for their signs

This is a result of a lack of education

My name is Joe and I'm an independent type designer

也是平面設計師 also a graphic designer

I studied Type & Media at the Royal Academy of Art The Hague

I started noticing fonts when I was in college

Hip Hop culture was popular at the time

So there were lots of

dancing, street dancing

Rap, and Hip Hop music

I began to pay attention to graffiti abroad

and learned how they change the style of text

I got my Masters at the Kyoto University of Arts and Design

I was able to learn font design at school

This was our textbook

Japanese textbooks teaches the history of both Roman and Chinese characters

It even talks about some basic

application on typesetting and font design

I learned a lot

and started to think about

when you're doing graphic design

Why do you use particular fonts?

If you want me to explain within 10 seconds

how different fonts create mood

I can show you this book

with two cat pictures

It uses the terrifying Koin-tai font

portrays the grouchy cat on the left

while a calm cat is portrayed by a delicate styled font

You understand immediately by looking at the cover

This is an example of creating mood with fonts

Fonts are like actors

Let's say a graphic designer

A graphic designer is like a director

and selecting fonts is like selecting actors

There are no good or bad actors, only if they're a good fit for the role

In general

most people don't care what kind of font is used

as long as the printed product is good

Moveble type printing is the foundation of all designs

Typesetting

is an important introduction to learning design

Printing techniques came first

Slowly the demand for more refined printing appeared

then came the emergence of aesthetics and font design

or font design guidelines

That's how the demand for font design was born

Around May or June of 2014

I got a phone call

The director of Taipei National University of the Arts Museum called me

Some scholars from the UK wanted to visit Ri Xing Type Foundry

They've heard about us

digitizing the fonts while repairing our copperplate printing press

They asked

now that you've digitalized the fonts, why did you keep the copperplates

and transform the foundry to a technology museum?

I told them

That's because it's letterpress printing

and the printed results are vastly different compared to modern printing

To me, even though the font is the same

The product we get from different printing styles

differ greatly

That's worth preserving

Letterpress in Europe is also a declining industry

but their design students still need to learn

about letterpress in their first or second year in university

On a whim

I offered a set of Chinese type as a gift

for their students' studies

They were shocked

Because they didn't know, until their visit

that a set of Chinese type had such vast quantities

and was so massive in size

Movable type printing is officially called letterpress printing

There are four types of printing

Apart from movable type printing or letterpress printing

there is also intaglio printing

which is used mostly

in printing money in our daily life

Then there is stencil printing

which is also called screen printing

that prints the patterns on T-shirts

The last one is the currently mainstream offset printing

It is also called offset lithography

which is a method of mixed water and ink printing

The difference between movable type printing

and this kind of offset printing

is that the latter directly presses the ink on paper

without the mixed water and ink printing process

That's the major difference

When it comes to China's printing technology

it was closely related to the development of Buddhism

It began with Buddhist monk XuanZang's travel to the West to obtain Buddhist Sutras

He started his journey in 629AD

and returned to China in 645AD

Spreading Buddhism

relies on religious scriptures and statues

To become a printed text the script must be easy to read

thus the earliest printed font is Kaiti

In order to achieve easier carving

and better efficiency in printing

neater arrangement between the characters

the style and

structure of Kaiti was regularized

It gradually evolved toward thinner horizontal strokes and thicker vertical strokes

and became the predecessor of the current Songti

But actually

The most commonly used modern printing fonts

Heiti and Yuanti

came from the Songti that was introduced to Japan

Japan redesigned the Songti, and as a result

Yuanti and Heiti were born

They became very important printed fonts

aiding the passing down of knowledge

My name is Nikhil Sonnad, I'm a reporter at Quartz

I work on stories to do with data and also language

I have a particular interest in the Chinese language

So the evolution of Chinese character goes all the way back to the 11th or 13th BC

that's the earliest characters that we know

So the earliest known characters are what's known as oracle bones

These characters were etched onto the bones of animals

What would happen is ancient Chinese Kings will have some questions about

whether we should invade a neighbor or whether we'll have a good harvest this year

And they would ask their priests or their soothsayers to

ask the gods or ask nature what the answer to this question would be

What they would do is they would etch these questions

physically onto the bones of animals or to the bellies of turtles