Japanese font workshop#1: How to recognize Japanese fonts

15 Dec 2005 Category: Features, Japan, Typography

Japanese font workshop#1: How to recognize Japanese fonts

Filled with alcohol for the gods. Mmm godly alcohol..

The other day, our loving chief editor, Uleshka brought us a bunch of pictures with cool Japanese fonts on them. These are Sake barrels (that’s “saki” to our American friends) made out of Japanese cedar. They are covered with a woven dry straw sheet called “Komo” in order to avoid sunburn and damp. You can often find Sake barrels at Japanese shrines. Why? No, Japanese monks are not terminal alcoholics. Well not all. The reason is of course a traditional one - we offer sake to the gods, thanking them for a good harvest. But today, we are not into the gods, but into the typography written on those very barrels…

Written by Kyoko

(If you want to know how to make Komo, here is an article on just that.)

Anyway, getting back to the Japanese fonts. We often think a lot about latin alphabet fonts - there are serif fonts, sans serif fonts, monospace fonts, Arial, Times New Roman, Courier oh and everyone’s favourite - Comic Sans. However, because of the massive range of characters in the Japanese alphabet (over 2000 in everyday use as opposed to the English alphabet’s 26…) you simply don’t get the diversity in fonts with the Japanese character set as you do in English. But! There are actually different fonts in Japanese used for different purposes, as these Sake barrels show us.

big sake container

An example of Hige Moji

Firstly, believe it or not, there are traditional fonts especially used for Sake. This font is called “Hige-Moji” (Hige is a whisker. Moji is an alphabet character). Hige-Moji is characterised by swooshy tails and often some parts are cracked.

ice

Hige Moji is used in modern applications like this sign for an ice shop (it says “ice”)

Japan uses this font in some other circumstances too, such as at the sushi restaurant, and the ice shop.

sumo

Big chunky Sumo Moji characters, image from Nihongo FAQ

Here is another typeface, called “Sumo-Moji”. Sumo-Moji is characterised by bold type and also being slightly bottom-heavy. It looks “stable”, like a Sumo wrestler as the name would suggest. And, as you might be able to guess, this font is used for Sumo wrestling match lists.

ice

Slightly more gentle-looking “Kanteiryu”

This next example is “Kanteiryu”. The name simply comes from the person who invented it. This is less bold than the others and has an almost gentle look. I heard that this font is designed from the image of a female Kabuki character. Naturally, this font is often used for Japanese traditional theatrical act.

All the fonts mentiond above are from the same era, Edo period, and hence they are sometimes categorized in one group as “Edo-Moji”.

People misuse these fonts without being aware of their historical connotation (I didn’t know the roots until yesterday either, though) but it might be nice to keep that in mind when designing!

PS. By the way, you can design your own Sake barrels. Maybe you can have sake barrel with big heart for your weddings. Also if you would like to know more about the differences between Japanese fonts and characters, we found a great online resource.

61 Comments

  1. Kyoko, nice introduction.

    I would be interested in knowing about type foundries in Japan. I know of DynaFont — I have some of their OpenType offerings. Are there other large players, or notable small foundries I should look into?

    Recommendations are appreciated.

    Posted by: Andy on December 15th, 2005 at 12:31 am

  2. sumo fonts are cool! nice article - waiting for more fonts!

    Posted by: ill p.e. on December 15th, 2005 at 1:50 am

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  4. Great article. I’m a South African designer that loves typography and I’m currently learning to speak Japanese.

    I love the article and will definitely be returning to this site.

    Keep it up.

    Posted by: Sergei Muller on December 15th, 2005 at 4:49 pm

  5. Andy, have a look at http://fontleech.com/categories/foundries/japan for links to Japanese type foundries offering free (and not so free) fonts.

    Posted by: Andreas on December 15th, 2005 at 5:15 pm

  6. ooh! thanks andreas!

    Posted by: uleshka on December 15th, 2005 at 6:36 pm

  7. MORISAWA is one of the most respected and quality-focused font foundry in Japan amongst typographers and designers.

    Although not particularly savvy in promoting themselves, the fonts Morisawa produce are excellent - but very expensive.

    http://www.morisawa.co.jp/

    Posted by: Curtis on December 15th, 2005 at 7:31 pm

  8. Thanks for the suggestions, Andreas and Curtis.

    Posted by: Andy on December 15th, 2005 at 10:43 pm

  9. wa~

    Posted by: flans on December 16th, 2005 at 5:38 pm

  10. FYI, I’ve made a handy list of the Japanese font foundries mentioned on Fontleech (cfr. my previous comment).

    Posted by: Andreas on January 4th, 2006 at 12:37 am

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  16. [...] How to recognize Japanese fonts [...]

    Posted by: Edomoji, todo lo que no sabemos de Japón… – pelluz on January 14th, 2007 at 8:28 am

  17. [...] How to recognise Japanese fonts [...]

    Posted by: ONE INCH PUNCH : East-Asian inspiration... » Blog Archive » How to recognise Japanese fonts on February 7th, 2007 at 12:36 pm

  18. Nice little article, but… for crying out loud, can we lose the “26 letters in the English alphabet” meme already? You’ve got capital and small letters; that’s 52 right there, in the narrowly-defined alphabet proper alone. Plus 10 digits, and a host of orthographic symbols. How many total? Depends on how you want to count, but the number of characters in a “Western” font – 256 – provides a ballpark figure.

    I may sound like I’m picking nits, but the article is about characters. It’s the right nit for the occasion.

    Posted by: Spankmesilly on March 4th, 2007 at 10:35 pm

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  23. I never knew the variety of Japanese fonts could be so fascinating! Thank you for this.

    Posted by: Japanese Alphabet on October 20th, 2008 at 1:16 am

  24. Thanks a lot for this article ! I’m a french graphic designer learning japanese language and i really love japanese graphic design. Japanese typography is a big mystery for me and i don’t find a lot of resources about, but your article give me some explanations. ありがと　ございます

    Posted by: ceegee on November 13th, 2008 at 4:10 am

  25. Kyoko,
    Can you please tell me the name of the Saki Barrel with the Crain featured 15, Dec 2005…? We have a Saki barrel like it but don’t know the name. Thanks Ted

    Posted by: Ted Cook on February 5th, 2009 at 1:52 pm

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  28. Kyoko,
    Can you please tell me the name of the Saki Barrel with the Crain featured 15, Dec 2005…? We have a Saki barrel like it but don’t know the name. Thanks Ted

    Posted by: calmiva on March 17th, 2011 at 5:28 am

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