This sign outside my school reads: "I love you, China." The bottom part says something about China's 60th birthday.
National Day was a very big event for China this year. Businesses and workplaces went out of their way to make the perfect 60th anniversary decorations. In the weeks leading up to the festivities, it seemed like the entire city of Shenzhen was covered with ads for 60% off specials.
My school, Luoling, also got caught up in the guoqing (National Day) spirit. The week before the October 1 holiday, I noticed that they changed one of the signs to the entrance of the building (pictured above).
Naturally, my designer instincts kicked in. I began to analyze the sign by guessing how many Photoshop layers and techniques (i.e. filters, feathering, gradients etc.) the artists used.
The word for "love" in Chinese (pronounced "ài"). Their use of hearts as strokes would be the equivalent of us dotting our i's with hearts.
Then my eyes were drawn to the fonts. Upon closer inspection of the character for “love,” I had to laugh.
Apparently the graphic artists, in keeping with the theme of loving China, replaced some strokes with little hearts in the character for the word “love.”
How … cute.
On that note, I’ve been studying the signs across the city, and I’m beginning to get a good idea of what the main typefaces are for Chinese characters. From the looks of it, there are very similar classifications (i.e. serifs, sans serifs, slab serifs and decoration fonts). In a later post, I will discuss these.
Bridget O'Donnell, 24, is a designer for the