Review interview | "The Incredible Fonts" Kobayashi Zhang: The best fonts are the ones that make people remember the content after reading

Today, I discussed with the art about the font used for the standard LOGO of the case in hand. He mentioned that the selected font is the work of the Japanese font designer Mr. Kobayashi Akira. I vaguely recalled that I had interviewed Mr. Kobayashi Zhang, and I found it after searching, so I posted it as a memory archive.

(After the interview and writing of this article was completed, it waspublished on the blog to the OKAPI website on 2014-02-26 .)

In the venue for the promotion of direct sales, some people were dazzled and sneered; However, there was once such a direct sales meeting, which became the beginning of the field of font design, the author of "The Incredible Fonts" and the world-renowned font designer Kobayashi Akira.

"This story is a bit long, okay?" Kobayashi Akira, 54, was a little embarrassed to confirm his wish to "reminisce about the past" at the scene. That is, he was still studying visual communication design at Musashino Art University in Japan. what happened. "I was only 20 years old at the time, and I was still a student. Once I was pulled by my classmates to listen to direct sales. Doubt, you have to join." But where did the young students get such a large sum of money? Xiao Linzhang watched his classmates join the club by borrowing money and fell into the whirlpool of direct sales.

I think this is no trivial matter, so I made posters and posted them on campus, asking everyone to pay attention to direct sales. "At that time, Kobayashi Zhang's actions made the school also vigilant, and thus effectively prevented direct sales from entering the campus. "After that incident, when I read visual communication design, I also began to think about 'advertising'." A man may never wear lipstick in his life, but he must design an advertisement for lipstick, or he has never driven a certain car at all. , but sell it through visuals. "What's the difference between the advertising design to convince people to buy a lipstick or a car, and the direct sales method that attracts people to join the club?"

"I think the essence of advertising design is the same as asking others to spend 500,000 yuan to join a direct sales that I personally think has no value." No matter whether it is advertising or direct sales, "promotion" is the only purpose. Thinking and packaging, where do you want to take this publicity? As a designer, Kobayashi is particularly alert to the works that may take shape in his hands. "As far as design is concerned, I was originally interested in font design. I think font design is really helpful to people and can really appreciate the fun of design and creation." After this incident, He is more determined to embark on the road of type design.

After graduation, Akira Kobayashi entered the Type Design Department of the Japanese typeface research and typesetting agency "Writing Research" (Writing Research/しゃけん) Co., Ltd. In the work of drawing dozens of Japanese fonts day after day, one day he picked up a copy of Herman. Hermann Zapf 's book "About Alphabets" is a book you can't put it down. "It was the first English book I read, and it took me 6 months to read it." The Latin alphabet aroused Kobayashi's curiosity, and to his surprise, Chapf wrote The contemporary German font design masters who have a good hand in handwriting actually rely on self-study to enter font design. "This incident shocked me. A person who has never been to school can become such a good type designer, and I can definitely be." So he quit his job at the age of 28 and went to London to study Western characters. type design.

"Whether it's Chinese characters or Western characters, as long as it's a character, I like it." The difference between the two is that Western characters are composed of letters one by one, and there is a rhythm and rhythm in them. "When I understand the beauty of this sense of rhythm, I feel that Western fonts are more interesting than Chinese characters."

It is this kind of rhythm and interest that made Xiao Linzhang work tirelessly on the stage of font design for more than 20 years. "The key to Western fonts is the composition of a "single character", not just looking at a single "letter"." Whenever designing a new Western font, you must first write down the appearance of the font that comes to your mind, and think of A Just write A, write G when you think of G, and try to write a few words at will. The point is to write "one word", not just one letter. "Of course the shape of the letters is also very important, but what's more important is the feeling of combining letters with letters." After roughly designing a few letters, create a single word, examine the rhythm of the word, and make adjustments repeatedly. "The most time-consuming is adjusting the kerning and the rhythm of the words. This is the most time-consuming stage." After that, the words are added to become a long article, and the fluidity of the entire article is checked. If a set of font design is completed, it will take about one to one and a half years.

The fonts tailored for different purpose objects also incorporate subtle different ideas. "When designing fonts for companies, we must carefully grasp the image of the company." Kobayashi Zhang emphasized, especially when redesigning fonts for companies with a long history, he should pay more attention to "turning tangible changes into intangible adjustments." So that customers can't notice the changes in the fonts on the company's products at a glance, after long-term observation, subtle differences can be seen.

When designing the text type of the book, he paid attention to "easy-to-read". "To make the reader feel comfortable, attentive, and not tired even after reading for hours." Let the content of the book appear smoothly in front of the eyes, without leaving traces of the appearance. "To help companies design new fonts, the purpose is to convey the voice of the company, but it cannot suddenly give a tone that is completely different from the past. It should be gentle and stable, and make changes in a small voice, little by little, little by little. The content of the book It is even more important to focus on this point, and you can't let the font keep shouting "See me! See me!" Just like the most admired type designer of the 20th century, Adrian. Adrian Frutiger said: "If you can remember the shape of the spoon after drinking the soup, the spoon is badly designed."

Kobayashi, who worked with Frutiger on the re-engraving of classic fonts, felt the same way. "Type designer is a job that helps a writer or a company to shape the voice." If you can hide your personality and the effort you put into fonts, you will be considered a success; even if it takes a lot of effort to design, Trimming a font can't be found. This is the job that attracts him most, and it is the charm. "If one day I see the person next to me on the plane reading a novel, and the text of the book uses the font I designed, when I tell the other person about it, I don't want the other person to answer me, 'That font is true "Beautiful", but I hope he has no impression of the font in the book at all." Designing a font that is like a boat passing by without a trace, making people only remember the content but not the appearance at all is what Kobayashi is most looking forward to and most satisfied with. thing.

The book "The Incredible Fonts" is guessed to be out of print. The current Traditional Chinese translations of Mr. Kobayashi's other works can be found here