Hanzi, From Print to Screen

Open your mobile phone’s default Chinese-language input system and begin typing. Chances are the text will show in basic, clear, rather blocky typeface. This is Heiti, a fairly young classification of typefaces– however currently the default on digital gadgets all over the world. The tale of how that happened is not your common “China story.” It included designers, researchers, and bureaucrats from China to Japan, even Massachusetts, working together and contending for over a century. The outcome of their work is something when believed difficult: bringing Hanzi into the digital world. This is the 2nd edition of Undertone China, a video series checking out the unknown history of how China’s connections with the world made it what it is today. Press Reporter: Xue Haolin; senior manufacturer: Fu Beimeng; cam: Lü Xiao, Fu Beimeng, and Xue Haolin; set style: Ding Yining, Fu Beimeng, and Xue Haolin; animation and movement graphics: Fu Xiaofan and Xue Haolin; story editors: Fu Beimeng, Kilian O’Donnell, and Cai Yineng; copy editor: Matthew Hall; executive manufacturer: Qi Ya; unique thanks: Huang Kejian, Liu Yuli, Shanghai Printing Technology Research Institute, Changzhou SinoType Technology Co., and atelierAnchor. history innovation SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER * Please get in an e-mail address.