Unearthing fonts from a creative Chinese past

The rapid growth of the creative industries has arguably been the main driver in the transformation of the calligraphic sign. Today, the Chinese character can be transformed into a versatile and dynamic digital font, adaptable into almost any shape or color as long as it stays legible, and creative designers increasingly have room to ‘play with’ the Chinese character. Based on ethnographic research and visual analysis, this article identifies and investigates a development toward a revitalization of calligraphic features within contemporary typography design. Often, calligraphy is employed as an ideal, and static articulation of Chineseness. What I want to show here, is how in contemporary font design, national interest, creativity, and Chineseness become mutually constitutive. Increasingly, we see how the Chinese past is envisioned as creative . This article takes the winning designs of the national type font contest of China’s main national font design company as its case study. With this approach, the goal is to address the specific focus of this special issue by reorienting views on creativity and decentralizing the term, aiming to dewesternize its interpretation.