Comments on: The poster of Waterland Kwanyin #34

By: Dajuin

Dajuin — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 02:43:47 +0000

Usually, discussions on the issue of simplified vs. traditional chinese characters get us nowhere, because people who argue (for either side) don’t really know their subject: the Chinese writing system — its origins and evolution, the science of character structure and methods of character invention, visual recognition and reading comprehension, etc., etc., and most of all, our own history.

Thus we have oxymoronic reasoning such as “… chasing fashion from other places…” One thing is true though — confidence is exactly the key here. But we need to know ourselves before discussing confidence or the lack of it.

By: a

Tue, 07 Feb 2006 08:39:28 +0000

Well, I would like to say it depends on the confidence of designers, how strong the intention in their mind. Let’s see Korean character, I bet they are real ugly stuff in most Chinese designer’s view, but it doesn’t really affect Korean make poster with it.
Culture is built on people’s lifestyle, as well as aesthetics, if we are floating and chasing fashion from other places but never settle down and trust ourself, who can we blame.

By: Dajuin

Dajuin — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 04:30:10 +0000

Well, i think you have already in your posts identified the crux of the issue here, i.e., visual effect.

Even though i acknowledge the other, psychological dimensions of people using Traditional Characters in Mainland China, i want to point out that from a purely design point of view, it is first and foremost the visual aspect that drives people to Traditional Characters.

Many mainland designers have told me again and again that they sometimes insist on using Traditional Characters because the simplified form just would not look right in headlines, especially when blown up really big on posters and billboards.

A good case in point is the poster for the recent sound art installation show which i curated in Hangzhou. I saw the designer Jiang Zhuyun typed in the title of the show in large, traditional characters without even thinking, while using all simplified characters for the rest of the poster. Upon my asking, he answered that the simplified version of “sheng” (sound) just wouldn’t do for such a large font size, that it would start looking really weird if you stare at it for a longer period of time (which is really true).

In any case, i wouldn’t fuss about the use of traditional characters in this poster. True, there are many cases of misuse and, more often than not, downright outrageous mistakes in choosing traditional characters, but i don’t see it here.

By: lawrence

lawrence — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 02:49:10 +0000

Very interesting! It appears that except for the two characters you’ve pointed out, all the other in the black box at bottom have exactly the same form in TC and SC.

So it’s pretty safe to say that, for the words at the top of the poster, the designer typed them out in SC and convert them into TC afterwards, but for the words in the black box, he/she simply skipped the convertion and used SC - presumably the default Chinese input system of his/her computer.

This is making the thing even more interesting: does the designer believe that the characters in the black box, in their SC form, to be “complex enough” to “deceive” people that they’re TC (which are denser and more complex in stroke structure)?

By: Dajuin

Dajuin — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 23:41:10 +0000

First of all, let me make one clarification: the characters here on this poster are not ALL “traditional characters.” If you look carefully, the characters for “Yan” (in Yan Jun) and “Jing” (in Shen Jing) are “simplified characters.” The real “traditional” forms are 顔 and 靜 (and this is not related to the issue of fonts).