Tokyo subway’s humble duct-tape typographer

https://medium.com/@chrisgaul/tokyo-subways-humble-duct-tape-typographer-a8c84bb6b99b

by timafuyc • 7 years ago

508 70 7 years ago

rzzzt• 7 years ago

I really like typefaces optimized for readability. For road and train signs, this property is of great importance (obviously), but they usually also end up aesthetically pleasing.

b_tterc_p• 7 years ago

These are quite nice looking. Is it correct to say that making them in this fashion with a neat grid and precise measurements is sort of contrary to how Kanji are normally written (with sort of an artistic attention to stroke order and direction)?

innocenat2• 7 years ago

While I can read all of the signs in the article, I think I wouldn't be able to if I don't know the context. Some characters are really distorted, and in many case character boundary are blurred.

fogetti5• 7 years ago

I agree. This is a terrible font face. I see the artistic value of it, but using it as any kind of guidance is a failure. Especially in stations like Shimokitazawa where the platforms are extremely narrow in some cases. This would just be another hindrance to find my way around in an inherently complex public transport system.

0xfaded• 7 years ago

I use 12x6 bitmap font with double width CJK characters. Many kanji are simply balls of pixels with fuzzy edges.

I remember when I was learning I did something to cause these characters to appear on screen in front of a Japanese friend (maybe cat'd an anki dump or something), and being absolutely blown away that he had zero trouble reading them.

mrob2• 7 years ago

It's a sans-serif typeface (called "gothic" typeface in Japanese), which is commonly used for signs, and stroke order/direction isn't so visible without serifs. But the design still implies stroke order in some cases, e.g. with round corners suggesting a single stroke, and sharp corners suggesting two strokes. Some of the signs are written in "round gothic" style where this distinction is dropped, but round gothic is still a normal style.

The strong alignment of the strokes to a grid is somewhat unusual, and the article explains how it's a result of the production technique. It's a good example of technical limitations fostering creativity. It reminds me of pixel art, where limited resolution forced development of new techniques that ended up being aesthetically appealing in their own right. The need to make clearly legible signs with limited equipment in a busy train station produced a distinctive style that wouldn't have happened without these constraints.

kijin2• 7 years ago

Kanji come in many forms, just as the Latin script has serif, sans-serif, slab serif, and various handwritten forms. Stroke order and direction are accentuated the most when Kanji is written with a brush on paper, which many computer fonts try to mimic. But the strokes can be made much less prominent when the letters are carved into stone or wood. You can even use a brush to flow all the strokes from several letters together into a long, virtually illegible squiggle [1]. Modern instruments like fountain pens produce different results, and pencils are still more different. There are different customs and standards of penmanship for each writing instrument.

The duct-tape typeface looks rather similar to seal script [2], an ancient style that is still commonly mimicked when, obviously, people carve seals (inkan).

[1] For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Xu

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_script

innocenat2• 7 years ago

It's not similar to seal script at all. A lot of seal scripts are unintelligible to me, even when I know what Kanji it represent. This is mostly legiable.

dpau• 7 years ago

I love seeing artists and designers overcome obstacles and the limits of their medium. In this case, the need for highly-visible, easily understandable signage and the use of duct-tape leads to some wonderful results. Although very different in both motivation and technique, I can't help but think of the "King of Kowloon", who's calligraphy has also been quite influential:

https://www.hongkongfp.com/2017/04/30/hkfp-lens-late-king-ko...

kmnt4• 7 years ago

vinyl plotters are so fast an cheap they ended hand lettering as a trade, I wonder how hes spending hours on these without management pressure for faster and cheaper temporary signs?

drcode• 7 years ago

I think 90% of the work is the design effort for each sign, a vinyl plotter won't make that faster. Also, a vinyl plotter and computer take up space and need a secure room.

coldtea7• 7 years ago

I think 90% of the work is the design effort for each sign, a vinyl plotter won't make that faster.

There wouldn't be any need for "design" if management was involved to expedite the process. Just put the ready made letters together with a couple of ready made vectors like arrows etc in a PC program, and send the file to the plotter.

Also, a vinyl plotter and computer take up space and need a secure room.

You could order the sign from a print shop with a vinyl plotter and have it delivered in 1-2 hours.

derefr2• 7 years ago

Also, a vinyl plotter and computer take up space and need a secure room.

They presumably already have these for their official signage, though. In most civic-infrastructure organizations, the bottleneck for producing signage is the design talent.

adrianmonk• 7 years ago

Print shops are a thing. I can order a large vinyl banner on the internet for under $50 here in the US. That has to be possible in Japan too.

coldtea7• 7 years ago

I wonder how hes spending hours on these without management pressure for faster and cheaper temporary signs

Some working places offer freedom and human values...

This is in Japan, of course, which is known for the inverse (highly managed corporations and overworking), but there are pockets of employee freedom and expression all over the world

washadjeffmad• 7 years ago

There's 'salaryman' life, then there's the rest of Japan.

It's very much "not all Japanese".

You don't work yourself to death for the sport of it, and you can get by, own a home, take vacations (locally), and afford what you need without needing to be busy all the time or devote your life to your corporate sponsor.

kmnt4• 7 years ago

Probably varies by industry, in my experience man hours are treated as too precious for this. I worked in a sign shop and there were still old hand letterers in the industry but forced to use vinyl printers and plotters. Doing it by hand isn't even contemplated. Also construction companies don't usually value good graphic design. Hand lettering such nice temporary signs is so surprising.

pier25• 7 years ago

overworking

On average, Japanese work as much as Canadians or Spaniards and generally below the US.

Mexico has been on one of the top spots for years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_average_annual_labor_h...

brok3nmachine• 7 years ago

There is no management pressure. The article mentions that the artist took it upon himself to start making the signs. So I'm under the impression he does so within his free time.

lonelappde2• 7 years ago

The mystery is whether he does this during downtime at work, or overtime after work.

Due to the medium, he must be doing the laborious work onsite.

zorak3• 7 years ago

His management is thoughtful! Plotters are cheap, but the entire chain of events leading to an effective sign being installed is almost certainly higher than this one guy spending a few hours on a sign.

VRay2• 7 years ago

It would literally take less than 10 minutes to make a crappy looking sign like that on a vinyl plotter, from laying it out on a laptop to cutting and sticking it.

nickhalfasleep• 7 years ago

Most of these are in spaces too rough or temporary for the cost of vinyl stickers.

_trampeltier• 7 years ago

So you would need somebodey who go onsite, but has no idea about the situation, this guy has to draw an example. But because this guy has no idea about the situation, he would need one or two worker from the site to help him.

So he design it .. the other guys have to say ok, produce the sign, deliver the sign, somebody has to recieve it, entry check for bill, somebody has to hang it up .. and it better is the correct size .. and has no error. And just for a little change the hole thing again.

I'm pretty sure if you have a worker who can do it onsite with tape (and keep it simple) .. there is no competition.

Remind me on this. The Super Micro CEO made an Ad by himself.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19913587

martin_henk• 7 years ago

Living in Tokyo, I spotted one of these tapings lately. It’s unbelievable how accurate they look. Not perfect typography, but as a designer I immediately sensed craftsmanship. Thanks OP for picking this up.

arfhn• 7 years ago

Another Tokyo resident here.

I can't stress how much these things helped when I first moved to Japan long time ago. Nowadays, you can do real-time translation of kanji just by pointing your smartphone at the signs, but back then you had to copy those kanji by hand to your electronic dictionary, and wrong stroke order means the right character just won't show up.

These simple typography helped me guess the correct stroke order to understand where I was and where I am supposed to go.

v-yadli• 7 years ago

Amazing. Traditionally kanji characters (and most Eastern Asia glyphs ) have individual typesetting layouts (a lot of horizontal lines of different elevations, for example 一干十土士王田甲由中申)

Aligning the horizontal strokes seem controversial at first (makes characters deform from their “normal” look), but reduces a lot of noise, that you can probably subconsciously parse more at a time?

rootsudo• 7 years ago

Yep, they are called radicals.

wodenokoto2• 7 years ago

No. Neither elevation of horizontal lines or alignment of strokes are called radicals.

To clarify: Radicals are common kanji elements, which are used in dictionaries for looking up kanji. A common misconception is that every repeated element is a radical.

In either case, this is not what the parent post is talking about.

jcl• 7 years ago

The article's description of his process was a little hard to follow. A time lapse was much clearer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKFgLQVX86U

analognoise• 7 years ago

Does this guy take commissioned work? It's probably out of my budget but damn it would make for a cool piece of wall art.

Keyframe• 7 years ago

Car designs used to be done with tape drawings (as part of the process, of course) https://youtu.be/PuZJO2jGGe0

enz• 7 years ago

As a Japanese language learner, I must say I have no trouble at all reading Sato's kanjis. Surprisingly enough! I live in Tokyo and I use the Nippori station at least once a month. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see Sato's work, so far :( I'll be aware.

wodenokoto2• 7 years ago

I find the 'ro' in his katakana completely illegible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKFgLQVX86U

I guess they can't all be winners.

KuhlMensch• 7 years ago

This is the instagram hashtag https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/%E4%BF%AE%E6%82%A6%E4...

Tokyo subway’s humble duct-tape typographer

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