Hong Kong East–West Graphic Modernism × Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

Set running Chinese text in Song/Ming type beside a neo-grotesque Latin so the bilingual page keeps one even colour.

From the research on Hong Kong East–West Graphic Modernism

Mix them and make something Hong Kong East–West Graphic Modernism Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography, their arrangement from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography, the finish from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Hong Kong East–West Graphic Modernism Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho)

Type from Hong Kong East–West Graphic Modernism: Grotesque & neo-grotesque
Brush & pen calligraphy

Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography avoids grotesque & neo-grotesque: this is where the two pull against each other.
Colour from Hong Kong East–West Graphic Modernism: Limited spot colours
Monochrome
Form from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography: Rectilinear
Rules & bars
Composition from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography: Modular grid
Column grid
Surface from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography: Carved line
Paper & letterpress bite

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Hong Kong East–West Graphic Modernism

Public

Inter Tight, standing in for Sans-serifs for the Latin: Helvetica in Kan Tai-keung's poster for The Arch (1970); a bold sans skewed at thirty degrees in Steiner's 'Progress Hong Kong' (1975)

Text · Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

The page and letter of the East Asian book. Song block cutters copied the regular script of Tang masters; from the mid-16th century Ming cutters straightened it into a knife-made letter of thin horizontals, thick verticals and triangular stroke ends. Equal square characters run in right-to-left vertical columns in a ruled frame folded at a central column. As metal type in Shanghai and Nagasaki it became Mincho, Myeongjo and the standard CJK text face. Frame, rules and fold column belong to the woodblock page; type keeps the letter, the square and, in Japan and Taiwan, the vertical column.

Shippori Mincho; Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography used Song block-cut regular script after Ouyang Xun, Yan Zhenqing and Liu Gongquan and Ming-style Songti / Mingti, the straightened 'craftsman's' letter, mature by the Wanli era

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Hong Kong East–West Graphic Modernism, with a counter-accent from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Hong Kong East–West Graphic Modernism Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho)

#f3efe6 ground · 36%
#151515 ink · 14%
#c62a20 accent · 18%
#b08d4a accent · 14%
#d6c49c accent · 10%
#8c8b86 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f3efe6;
  --ink: #151515;
  --accent-1: #c62a20;
  --accent-2: #b08d4a;
  --accent-3: #d6c49c;
  --accent-4: #8c8b86;
  --font-display: "Inter Tight", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
}

Use it with care

Hong Kong East–West Graphic Modernism: Hong Kong uses traditional Chinese characters, so do not substitute simplified forms, and have every Chinese word in a lockup checked by a literate reader, since image models often invent or garble characters. The style used real Chinese signs and characters for their meaning, such as the coin and 中 of the Bank of China emblem; do not fall back on brush-effect 'chop-suey' Latin fonts or random characters as exotic texture.

Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho): Have any Chinese, Japanese or Korean text set and proofread by a fluent reader: Song, Mincho and Myeongjo fonts draw some characters differently for each locale, and pseudo-characters, mirrored glyphs or random hanzi used as texture read as nonsense or worse. Pages of Buddhist sutras and other scripture carry devotional text; do not crop them into decoration.