Where are the boundaries of typography today?

Word Power

——Exploring the creative expression of typography

01

Words are born with use,

Fonts are endless,

Type design is human-centric.

Hanyi Font Art Director

Famous Chinese font designer

When computers were not popular, fonts had clear boundaries. Today, however, digital technology breaks down the boundaries of fonts. Digital technology makes font design, development, dissemination and application more and more convenient, but this does not mean that the threshold of the font industry has been lowered, on the contrary, the threshold of this industry will become higher and higher. Come Higher, because fonts are the carrier of characters, and characters are the carrier of culture. It is the primary task of fonts to maximize the social effect of characters. Future social development will raise fonts Higher requirements will require more exquisite and easy-to-use fonts with profound connotations.

The development of Chinese characters is from oracle bone inscriptions, Mao Gong Ding, Yishan Stele, Cao Quan Stele to Jiucheng Palace. Its development tends to be easy to understand, easy to write, and easy to remember, in order to facilitate people to convey and obtain information quickly and effectively. Text is born because of use, fonts are inexhaustible because of use, and font design is people-oriented.

My own experience with typography is very simple and straightforward. The word "use-oriented" is unforgettable to me. My creation is entirely to meet the needs of users and solve practical problems, so My designs are all practical.

From the emergence and development of Song style characters, the bamboo slips of the Western Han Dynasty "Xiangli Shanjian" and the silk script "Yin Yang and Five Elements" of the Western Han Dynasty, to the engraved version of "Four Books Zhangju" in the Qing Dynasty, we can see Song type characters are formed as a result of the rapid engraving of regular script during the engraving process. Song style characters form a brilliant calligraphy art in the writing project. From writing to being a practical recording tool, people began to use tools to process words and disseminate information.

When I started designing the Hanyi Xuansong font, I felt that I needed to ask myself three questions: 1. Why did you design Xuan Song? Second, what is the current situation of Song style characters? The third is what problem does Xuan Song want to solve? I finally decided to create the Hanyi Xuansong font with plain, warm, dignified and elegant design concepts.

Where do ideas come from? Borrow a sentence written by James Webb Young in the book "Creativity" to summarize: "An idea is a new combination. In fact, an idea is a new combination of previous elements. Only with the ability to recognize the relationship between facts can we have the ability to create new combinations.”

02

Come on,

If you run well, you may be the protagonist.

Chen Song Brand Design Consultant Partner/Creative Director

Chairman of Shenzhen Graphic Design Association

Design and curiosity come from human nature.

The essence of design is creation, understanding and effective communication with our time. Break through the old mindset and interpretation of the old conventions, face the reality and meet the challenges of the trend, which is the change of structure, performance and external characteristics, or the enrichment and perfection of content, or the process and The reengineering of the model, and even the transformation of social responsibility.

Design is to create more possibilities for life.

From the moment I got the speech topic, I have been thinking about what is the relationship between me and fonts. There is no need to repeat the profound emotions of writing to the Chinese. Words have a special emotion for me. Over the years, I have been devoting myself to the design industry. Although I have never studied fonts professionally, text is inseparable from graphic design. Looking back,I can find a lot of content about personal emotions, the past, and the times in the text .

Reproduction and performance of design, there are many entry points on how to find one's own source of nutrition and inspiration, and organize one's own expression and expression. In terms of emotions with words, I can find my way of looking at "words".

My past experience of "playing around" on the set and some font observations in my daily life have provided inspiration and nutrition for my font design< span>. The following are font experiment works created during my student period that I have never published before, and some projects related to font design, all of which contain some of my personal thinking and understanding. For example, this "Design Invitational Exhibition Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the Establishment of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone - Poster 30" has both the Arabic numeral "30" and the Chinese character "Three 〇". Shenzhen is where the blue ocean civilization and the yellow land civilization meet, which is the "green" area on the map. Poster design is a great way to research self-creation. I don't have any rules for writing. When I can't think of what to do, I write and return to the information itself.

Sometimes it's nice to be able to play tricks. I started working as a Japanese translator at GDC in 2008, from translation to reception, coordinator, and now I am the chief curator. I think sometimes you can be a leading role by playing tricks, so when they told me to play tricks for Donnie Yen, I thought it was good.

Where did the inspiration for the design come from? A little nourishment I can give you today is: observe life and find your inner feelings. How we perceive the world matters. Because each person's way of intervening in life, feelings about life, and the feeling that life leaves for you are different, which is precisely the reflection of the heart. What touches you brings you creative thinking. In terms of design, I emphasized various methodologies for a while, and used various international modernist formats, but in the past two years, I have become more and more casual and disorganized. I found that customers don't understand the grid system, and what impresses them most is your personal charm, spirit, and communication style.

There are also some ways of learning that do not take time, such as making a video diary, looking through old photos, and observing the font design on the road, which are very interesting. Finding some ways to have fun, that's how we got into typography.

03

The text is really interesting

——Text Design and Traditional Nutrition

Vice Chairman of Shenzhen Graphic Design Association

Member of New York Art Direction Club

Signed font designer of Founder and Hanyi font library

Typography is a creation in itself.

What is the easiest and most difficult thing to draw in the world? Drawing people is the hardest and drawing ghosts is the easiest. We deal with Chinese characters every day, and we can tell at a glance who is doing well and who is not doing well. "Learning from the ancients, learning from nature, and learning from the heart", corresponds to copying, sketching and creation. Only creation is doing something that is not controversial. To do design, especially text design, you also need to "learn from the past, learn from nature, and learn from the heart". I will share from personal experience.

What does "wen" refer to in ancient China? Looking back to the past, the ancients said: Everything in the world has its own culture. The so-called "astronomy and geography" is also like this. Chinese characters are created based on pictographs. I think the tradition is not the "spirit, system, style, art, etc. handed down from generation to generation" written on Baidu Encyclopedia, but "all the information related to Chinese characters from now onwards"< span>.

Someone asked me how to draw on traditional nutrition for inspiration in the creative process? The word "Typography" includes a big concept-it includes font design, font design, font experimentation, and typography. I have sorted out the three directions of font design: font design, font design and font experiment. These three types of font designs each have their own logic and creative characteristics, and they are not separated or contradictory to each other, but can be converted to each other.

The "body" of font design refers to the "system". The font font we are familiar with is one of the font design , This category needs to complete a large number of words. Generally speaking, their literal, central palace, center of gravity, structure and stroke characteristics are consistent, and the overall appearance is relatively unified. It tests the spirit of craftsmanship and needs to be polished slowly.

Font design mainly refers to artistic characters, which are mainly used on brands, packaging and posters. There are fewer characters to be completed in this category, and more attention is paid to the expression of brand tonality or font personality. There are often relatively more graphic attributes, and graphic designers do more of this type.

Font experiment is a broader concept. Innovative exploration works from various aspects such as tools, carriers, techniques, structures, and recognition can be classified into this category, and what is required is the temperament of an artist.

Some font companies have cooperated with calligraphers to develop some fonts, which have been criticized by some calligraphy associations. I don't label myself calligraphy, it's just an attempt at artistic calligraphy. For example, if you want to combine black body and official script, you think it is very fun, and you will realize it with a big brain.

Words · Words

——APD 15th Anniversary Type Design Invitational Exhibition

Exhibition time

2019/11/15-2019/12/10

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Exhibition Location

Eslite Life Shenzhen 3F Bookstore ArtStudio

& 4F Bookstore esliteFORUM