Anthology of Chinese Character Design

These three handbooks are a selection of The Type's ongoing independent research projects on Chinese design. Topics include the history and development of Chinese typeface design, Chinese typography tradition and contemporary practice, and the discussion of cross-cultural design in the Chinese context.

I. Shanghai movable type: a glimpse into the history of modern Chinese typeface design

How were the modern digital fonts such as Song, Hei, Fang, and Kai that we use every day designed in the first place? In fact, they all go back to the first batch of Chinese font designers more than half a century ago. Many of them gathered in the Shanghai Institute of Printing Technology, which laid the foundation for the design of Chinese fonts after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and has a profound influence on contemporary times. But this history is unfamiliar to many domestic and foreign designers. With the efforts of the "Shanghai Movable Type" research project, "Shanghai Movable Type: A Look at the History of Modern Chinese Typeface Design" attempts to outline the early development of modern Chinese typeface design, to understand how it first became a pioneering initiative promoted at the national level, and how its status is in China. Ebbing in the torrent of marketing and commercialization.

II. The Peacock Project: Ideas for Rebuilding Chinese Typesetting

How to do Chinese typesetting to be considered orthodox and elegant? Are there any industry standards to refer to? The tradition and wisdom of Chinese typography for hundreds of years have not been inherited in today's design practice. The reason is that the logic of current computer software is based on the Latin writing system, and this aspect is also ignored in domestic design education. "Peacock Project: Ideas for Reconstructing Chinese Typography" is a brief summary of our long-term published "Peacock Project" project, aiming to fill in this gap by reviewing the historical tradition of Chinese typography and comparing it with Japanese and Western texts , rebuilding the local Chinese typography ideas in a modern design environment.

III. Cross-Cultural Typographic Design: A Discussion in the Chinese Context

Domestic designers will almost certainly be exposed to designs in other languages, and Chinese is gradually entering the international design business, and there are even foreign designers who design Chinese fonts ... When designing for non-native languages, how should we view locality and aesthetics? Question of principle? These discussions around cross-cultural text design are not popular among Chinese designers. The volume "Cross-Cultural Type Design: Discussions in the Chinese Context" is one of the records of a series of discussions organized by The Type on this topic, focusing on the global trend of cross-cultural design and its application in the Chinese context. What arguments and tactics to bring.