This is how the imitation Song typeface you often use comes from

The beginning of the Diamond Sutra and the painting on the title page (Tang Dynasty) are the earliest woodblock prints with a clear date in existence in China

Since the appearance of oracle bone inscriptions, Chinese characters have generally experienced the evolution of seal script, official script, cursive script, regular script, and running script. With the development of technology and the popularization of computers, keyboard input is becoming more and more common, and there are corresponding formatting requirements when using computers to write (such as Song typeface with three numbers in the title, bold centered, and small four numbers in the text). The official documents of party and government agencies are an important tool for implementing leadership, performing functions, and handling official affairs. The format of official documents also has strict requirements. So, how did imitation Song typeface appear?

Regular script has naturally become the original "printing typeface"

The emergence of imitation Song fonts is closely related to the development of printing. Nowadays, the fonts of Chinese characters can be roughly divided into two systems: calligraphy fonts and printing fonts. Seal script, cursive script and running script belong to calligraphy fonts, while imitation Song typeface is a printing font specially designed for printing.

In fact, print was also developed from handwritten fonts. Looking back in history, the earliest printed fonts were italics. On the one hand, regular script in the modern sense developed and matured in the Tang Dynasty, and was widely used in official documents and folks in the Tang Dynasty; on the other hand, woodblock printing was invented in the Tang Dynasty. Before the invention of printing, books were copied by hand. Therefore, the birth of engraving and printing in the Tang Dynasty was originally to bring convenience to the copyists at that time.

"Carving board" means carving with wood, usually jujube or pear wood. After selecting the wood, saw the boards into pieces according to the size of the book, and then soak them in water for about a month, or boil them in water. After that, the plates are planed, dried in the shade, and finally rubbed with soybean oil, scraped and polished. After that, you can paste the "sample writing" on the wooden board. "Sample writing" is to write down the words to be engraved on the paper. If you find any mistakes in the writing, dig out the mistakes and paste them on white paper to make up. After the proofreading is correct, the sample can be pasted on the plate in reverse, and then it can be printed. The purpose of printing is to dig out the parts without words and leave the parts with words, so that the characters are prominent and easy to print. Before the step of engraving, there were still handwritten characters on the plate, but after the engraving, the traces of knife carving were left on the font, and the printed characters after engraving were roughly the same as the handwritten characters.

The Tang Dynasty was the period when the art of regular script was at its peak, and many famous calligraphers emerged, such as Ouyang Xun, Yan Zhenqing, Liu Gongquan, etc. They adapted to the development law of calligraphy art, perfected and transformed regular script, and popularized the art of calligraphy by the scholar-official class Therefore, most of the fonts written by the writers at that time were regular script imitating the brushwork of famous masters. In this context, Kaishu became the original "printing font" of course. It can be said that regular script is the basis of all printing fonts.

The Song style characters we call today were developed on the basis of regular script. Hu Yinglin, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, said in "Shaoshi Shanfang Bi Cong" (Part A): "The engraving began in the Sui Dynasty, traveled in the Tang Dynasty, expanded in the Five Dynasties, and was proficient in the Song people." Its development reached its peak in the Song Dynasty.

Song typefaces are beginning to emerge in the change from arcs to straight lines

During the Northern Song Dynasty, the engraved block script was still in regular script, and there appeared people who specialized in writing standard regular script. They have a solid foundation in regular script, adhering to the legacy of "the people of the Tang Dynasty respecting the law", and competing to imitate the calligraphy of famous masters of the Tang Dynasty.

Compared with writing, engraving work is more difficult and boring, and the income of engravers is quite meager. Coupled with the high demand for books at that time, in order to survive, the engravers could only work regardless of the cold winter and hot summer, and constantly explored ways to improve work efficiency. They found that reducing the number of knife strokes while maintaining the basic shape of the text can greatly speed up the work progress. The most effective way to reduce the number of sword strikes is to simplify the original arcs of the characters into straight lines, and make the complicated and irregular places simple, regular and easy to handle. Song typefaces are beginning to show signs of this change. It can be said that the more regular script used in the printed version of the Song edition is the source of the Song font.

In the Ming Dynasty, Ming Taizu adopted a policy of suppressing martial arts and writing, and the printing and publishing industry developed greatly. The engravings of the Ming Dynasty tried their best to imitate the fonts of the Song version. Although the shape and structure of the Song version of the fonts were roughly maintained, they inevitably infiltrated the operational awareness and habits of the engravers, and the style of the Song version of the fonts gradually changed. The oblique strokes gradually become smoother, and the structural layout gradually becomes uniform. We can regard the fonts that imitated the Song version in the early Ming Dynasty as the basis of Song typefaces.

Engravers' long-term imitation of the Song version of the font deeply influenced the specification of the Ming Dynasty's lettering. Coupled with the need for fast engraving, a font with a square and well-proportioned structure, easy to engrave and print, and specially designed for reading was produced after Wanli in the Ming Dynasty. What we call "Arial" now. Because it was developed by imitating the fonts on the Song version of the book, it was originally called Fangsong (not the current Fangsong), and later called Laosong and Song.

The emergence of imitation Song style is closely related to the introduction of movable type printing

So how did the imitation Song style for writing official documents come about? As the name suggests, Imitation Song means "imitating Song style". The source of the modern imitation Song style can be traced back to a typeface imitating the engraved version of the Song Dynasty launched by the brothers Ding Shanzhi and Ding Fu in 1916 - "Ding's Juzhen imitation Song version movable type", referred to as Juzhen imitation Song ("Juzhen" is another type of movable type) a title).

Although Bi Sheng invented movable type printing as early as the Northern Song Dynasty, traditional movable type printing has many disadvantages, such as a wide variety of characters, difficult production, unsuitable for long-term repeated use, and the need for typesetting workers to have certain cultural accomplishments. Therefore, block printing was the mainstream printing technology in China until the Opium War. With the invasion of Western powers, Western movable type printing was also introduced into China, and our country gradually moved from traditional printing to modern printing. The emergence of imitation Song style is closely related to the introduction of movable type printing.

In 1912, the father of the Ding brothers, Ding Licheng, passed away. In order to commemorate their father, the two planned to print the manuscript of "Xiaohuai Yu Yin" written by his father. The Ding brothers believed that their father's posthumous works should be exquisite and unique, and should not be printed out in a crude manner. At that time, the popular printing font was Song-style, but most of the lead molds of Song-style on the market came from Japan. The outline of the lead type was rigid and the structure of the font was loose, so it was not very elegant to print into a book. Therefore, the Ding brothers decided to use the engraved version of the Song Dynasty as a template to design imitations and engrave movable type.

At first, brothers Ding used boxwood to engrave characters, but the labor cost was too high, so they decided to use lead type instead, and went to Shanghai to hire Xu Xixiang and Zhu Yibao, two well-known engravers at that time, to jointly engrave lead movable type. Finally, in 1916, "Ding's Juzhen Imitation Song Edition Movable Type" was created, which is also the first modern printing font in Chinese history. This font is quaint and beautiful, the thickness of horizontal and vertical strokes tends to be uniform, the overall strokes are slightly thinner, there are oblique edges and corners at the beginning of the stroke, and sharp-edged shoulders at the curved part. It is harmonious, tall and straight, and is pleasing to the eye.

After creating the typefaces, the Ding brothers founded Juzhen Fangsong Yin Bookstore in Shanghai. Later, due to poor management, Juzhen Fangsong Yin Bookstore was taken over by Zhonghua Book Company in 1920, and formally signed a contract and merged into Zhonghua Book Company in 1921. At the same time, Juzhen Fangsong Printing Ownership is also transferred.

In 1920, after acquiring Juzhen Fangsong Printing and Juzhen Fangsong Fonts, Zhonghua Book Company established Juzhen Fangsong Printing Department, and published a large number of books, periodicals and advertisements using Juzhen Fangsong fonts. But Zhonghua Book Company did not make further development on the basis of Juzhen Fangsong fonts, but only expanded the font size, expanding the font size of Juzhen Fangsong from five font sizes and types at the beginning of purchase to eight types of fonts, adding Juzhen Fangsong fonts Application side.

It is precisely because of the success of Zhonghua Bookstore Juzhen imitating Song Dynasty fonts that other bookstores (such as Commercial Press, World Bookstore, Dadong Bookstore, etc.) and type factories (such as Shanghai Huafeng Printing and Casting Institute, etc.) The body has entered a golden age of development. "Imitation Song Style" has gradually formed and matured in the first half of the 20th century.

In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the printed fonts of our country continued to use the copper mold type before liberation, and the fonts were old and messy. There are no standards for the four major printed fonts of Song, Hei, Kai, and Fangsong that were left behind at the time. In addition, from 1956 to 1959, the state successively announced four batches of simplified fonts and radicals with a total of about 3,000 characters. Due to popularization and application, the four fonts of Song, Hei, Kai, and Fangsong needed to be replaced with simplified characters.

In 1961, the state established the Type Research Office of the Shanghai Institute of Printing Technology and began new type development activities. In the year of its establishment, the Font Research Office successively developed "Song Yi", "Song Er Ti" and "Hei Yi". Songyi was first used in the typesetting of the main text of the 1965 edition of "Ci Hai"; Song II was used in the typesetting of the main text of "Selected Works of Mao Zedong" in 1965; Hei Yi was used in the typesetting of "Ci Hai", reference books and map annotations, etc. In addition, type designers have also innovated Kai and imitation Song. The newly designed Kai font is widely used in children's books, and the layout is fresh and eye-catching, even and tidy. The imitation Song style is elegant and elegant, and is widely used in party and government documents.

Text and photo courtesy/Xizhou (National Humanities and History)