Stylogeny combining Out-of-Square Hangul Typography × Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

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Style combination · Contrasts

Out-of-Square Hangul Typography × Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

Ahn Sang-soo's typeface broke exactly the equal square that Myeongjo keeps; run Myeongjo body text under out-of-square headings to stage tradition against experiment.

From the research on Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho)

Mix them and make something Out-of-Square Hangul Typography Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

IndexOut-of-Square Hangul × Song–Ming Woodblock
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.

01

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.

Out-of-Square Hangul Typography Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho)

Type from Out-of-Square Hangul Typography

Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography avoids experimental & distorted: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.

Colour from Out-of-Square Hangul Typography
Form from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography
Composition from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography
Surface from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

02

The type

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

Display · Out-of-Square Hangul Typography

Index

Syne; Out-of-Square Hangul Typography used Ahn Sang-soo typeface and Isang-che, Mir-che and Mano-che

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

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Out-of-Square Hangul Typography, with a counter-accent from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Out-of-Square Hangul Typography Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho)

  • #f5f3ee ground · 36%
  • #111111 ink · 14%
  • #f2c12e accent · 18%
  • #b5342b accent · 14%
  • #d6c49c accent · 10%
  • #1f4fa0 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f5f3ee;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #f2c12e;
  --accent-2: #b5342b;
  --accent-3: #d6c49c;
  --accent-4: #1f4fa0;
  --font-display: "Syne", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
}

Use it with care

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.

04

The two styles

Oversized black and red Korean letterforms fill an off-white vertical cover. A blue ring above a long blue rectangle resembles a lowercase i near the lower left. 1985–present · East Asia Out-of-Square Hangul Typography A Korean typographic movement that frees Hangul from the equal square in which metal and photo type had always set each syllable. Beginning with Ahn Sang-soo's 1985 typeface, jamo keep fixed sizes so syllables vary in height and lines hang from a shared top edge; letters are built from circle, dot and straight stroke, and in posters and the magazine Bogoseo/Bogoseo they are enlarged until they become the picture. A vintage-style bookstore poster has large black Japanese characters stacked vertically in a central panel, with smaller vertical lettering along both sides. Black ruled borders, red four-petal motifs, diamonds and dots decorate a textured cream background. c. 960–present · East Asia Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho) 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.

05

More combinations

With Out-of-Square Hangul Typography

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With Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

All 18 combinations with Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

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