4 ms·

Regarding mechanical compression: it's probably not 100% so, but afaik in kanji/hanzi and likely many other SEA scripts, proportions of a character don't matter

by aasasd 7y ago

Regarding mechanical compression: it's probably not 100% so, but afaik in kanji/hanzi and likely many other SEA scripts, proportions of a character don't matter much―they're just strokes in a grid that you can squish without harm to legibility. That's why labels on cheap Chinese goods often had deformed quasi-monospace Latin type: the author just had no idea anything is wrong. It's likely less true of sorta-calligraphic lettering of Matisse EB―but I still wonder if compression just wasn't seen as much of a deal.

watt 7y ago
Here's a great article why so many Chinese goods are printed with those ugly latin characters: https://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/183/ https://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/183/
- jandrese 7y ago
  The answer seems to be that the only company that makes Chinese fonts just doesn't give a fuck about the latin characters.
- aasasd 7y ago
  One point that the article doesn't make very clear is, Chinese fonts have Western characters that occupy the same space as the hieroglyphs—seemingly so that mixed-language text follows the hanzi grid. (Afaik Unicode even has wide-proportioned versions of some punctuation—dot and comma—specifically for embedding in hanzi text. But dunno if it had widespace Latin or other Western letters.) Not sure, though, if monospace Latin characters are really a requirement for mixed-language texts in the Chinese market. If it is, then new fonts will have to incorporate it. However, typesetting on exported Chinese goods should follow Western practices, and that will probably mean convincing the designers that Western letters work differently.
  - kps 7y ago
    > But dunno if it had widespace Latin or other Western letters. Yes, U+FF01–U+FF5E is a ‘full width’ copy of printable ASCII (U+0021–U+007E). Ｙｅｓ，Ｕ＋ＦＦ０１－Ｕ＋ＦＦ５Ｅｉｓａ｀ｆｕｌｌｗｉｄｔｈ＇ｃｏｐｙｏｆｐｒｉｎｔａｂｌｅＡＳＣＩＩ（Ｕ＋００２１－Ｕ＋００７Ｅ）． https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfwidth_and_Fullwidth_Forms_(Unicode_block) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfwidth_and_Fullwidth_Forms_...
  - dfox 7y ago
    Unicode has two additional copies of whole ASCII, fullwidth and halfwidth with the expectation that the widths would match the Han character grid (strictly speaking the halfwidth variant is somewhat redundant, but it is there). On the other hand I think that the ugly latin fonts on chinese goods (and also the amount of completely redundant and nonsensical labels like “Fan”, “LED”...) has completely different reason: nobody simply cares about that.
- jhanschoo 7y ago
  In its proper use as setting a few words of foreign languages in a mostly Chinese text, the fonts succeed in their job.
wodenokoto 7y ago
> proportions of a character don't matter much―they're just strokes in a grid that you can squish without harm to legibility. I'd say that's even less true than it is for latin letters.
- aasasd 7y ago
  Specifically, apart from observation of hanzi and kanji being written with random proportions instead of square, I can't help noticing some patterns, like in the following cases: 日月明女子好金不鈈虫古月蝴 As far as I can see, all these keep the same proportions and occupy the same space.

by aasasd 7y ago

watt 7y ago

Here's a great article why so many Chinese goods are printed with those ugly latin characters: https://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/183/ https://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/183/

jandrese 7y ago
The answer seems to be that the only company that makes Chinese fonts just doesn't give a fuck about the latin characters.
aasasd 7y ago
One point that the article doesn't make very clear is, Chinese fonts have Western characters that occupy the same space as the hieroglyphs—seemingly so that mixed-language text follows the hanzi grid. (Afaik Unicode even has wide-proportioned versions of some punctuation—dot and comma—specifically for embedding in hanzi text. But dunno if it had widespace Latin or other Western letters.) Not sure, though, if monospace Latin characters are really a requirement for mixed-language texts in the Chinese market. If it is, then new fonts will have to incorporate it. However, typesetting on exported Chinese goods should follow Western practices, and that will probably mean convincing the designers that Western letters work differently.
- kps 7y ago
  > But dunno if it had widespace Latin or other Western letters. Yes, U+FF01–U+FF5E is a ‘full width’ copy of printable ASCII (U+0021–U+007E). Ｙｅｓ，Ｕ＋ＦＦ０１－Ｕ＋ＦＦ５Ｅｉｓａ｀ｆｕｌｌｗｉｄｔｈ＇ｃｏｐｙｏｆｐｒｉｎｔａｂｌｅＡＳＣＩＩ（Ｕ＋００２１－Ｕ＋００７Ｅ）． https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfwidth_and_Fullwidth_Forms_(Unicode_block) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfwidth_and_Fullwidth_Forms_...
- dfox 7y ago
  Unicode has two additional copies of whole ASCII, fullwidth and halfwidth with the expectation that the widths would match the Han character grid (strictly speaking the halfwidth variant is somewhat redundant, but it is there). On the other hand I think that the ugly latin fonts on chinese goods (and also the amount of completely redundant and nonsensical labels like “Fan”, “LED”...) has completely different reason: nobody simply cares about that.
jhanschoo 7y ago
In its proper use as setting a few words of foreign languages in a mostly Chinese text, the fonts succeed in their job.

wodenokoto 7y ago

> proportions of a character don't matter much―they're just strokes in a grid that you can squish without harm to legibility. I'd say that's even less true than it is for latin letters.

aasasd 7y ago
Specifically, apart from observation of hanzi and kanji being written with random proportions instead of square, I can't help noticing some patterns, like in the following cases: 日月明女子好金不鈈虫古月蝴 As far as I can see, all these keep the same proportions and occupy the same space.