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…easily explained when using a broad-edged pen or brush…”

roz­mowa z Akira Kobay­ashi’m; bo prze­cież tra­dy­cja ręcz­nego pisma jest nam wszyst­kim wspólna… prawda? ;-)

    I took let­te­ring and typo­gra­phy cour­ses at Musa­shino Art Uni­ver­sity in the early 80s, but natu­rally they are focu­sed on Japa­nese script. There was no pro­per text­book about western alpha­bets: things like the rela­tion­ships between stroke thick­ness and the angle of broad-edged pen were never men­tio­ned in books on let­te­ring in Japan.
    “Ruling pen and com­pas­ses” the­ory (what the Euro­pean scho­lars did in the rena­is­sance period) was the one and the only prin­ci­ple…


    (…)
    I think, if you are dis­gu­sted by typo­gra­phic mista­kes in the West, you sho­uld visit Japan to be really dis­gu­sted!
    In Japan that pro­blem is doubled because of our wri­ting sys­tem set in ver­ti­cal and hori­zon­tal direc­tion. On top of that, texts are almost always accom­pa­nied by Roma-ji (Latin alpha­bet), which makes the pro­blem four times as bad. Even worse — public signs sho­uld also be writ­ten in English which — besi­des the aesthetic/typographic pro­blem — accom­pa­nies dif­fi­cul­ties in spel­ling and grammar.

    Plus — there are a lot of people in Japan who try to “improve” signs, but adding extra — mostly han­dw­rit­ten — infor­ma­tion. Thro­ughout Japan you will see mil­lions of let­te­ring appli­ca­tions by non-professionals with good inten­tions. And having said that: I love them.
    (…)

{ 2 } Comments

  1. ada | March, 25, 2006 at 12:57 | Permalink

    pismo ręczne? a CZYM to się pisało — samą ręką? tak bez kla­wia­tury?! może jesz­cze powiesz, że pisało się bez­po­śred­nio na tych kar­tecz­kach, na któ­rych się drukuje ;-)

  2. makowski | March, 25, 2006 at 13:08 | Permalink

    » ada
    ja nie rozu­miem.
    to japoń­czyk mówi; a Oni są dziwni… do dziś piszą ręcz­nie; choć kom­pów mają 6 razy wię­cej niż my…

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