About Shanghai Type

Shanghai Type (上海活字) is a research project and public archive of printed Chinese typefaces designed, cut, or used in Shanghai, from the late nineteenth century to the present. It collects original drawings, printed samples, interviews, photographs, and essays so that type history can be read from primary material rather than from later digital revivals alone.

The project was started by Li Zhiqian (厉致谦). The Type supports it and hosts related writing. This site is the permanent digital archive. It is independent, non-profit, and still being added to.

Why Shanghai

Shanghai was one of the main centres of Chinese type manufacturing in the twentieth century. Before 1960, most printing types in use were inherited copper matrices and lead type: Japanese-derived Song faces such as Shuei (秀英体) and Tsukiji (筑地体) for text, plus locally cut Kai, Fangsong, Lishu, and Hei. After 1949 the shortage of matrices, the four batches of simplified characters issued in 1956–1959, and poor reviews of Chinese book types at the 1959 Leipzig Book Fair all made a national design programme feel urgent.

In August 1960, following a call by Hu Yuzhi (胡愈之) and under Tang Jihong (汤季宏) at the Shanghai Publishing Bureau, a type-design studio was set up that later sat inside the Shanghai Printing Technology Research Institute (上海印刷技术研究所, often abbreviated 印研所). Its first brief was “renovate the old and invent the new, starting from renovation” (整旧创新), aiming at typefaces that were Chinese, collective, and varied. Designers were drawn from three trades: punchcutters who knew how type actually printed, calligraphers who knew character structure, and book designers who could write display lettering.

Xu Xuecheng later summarised the same period as the work of “three factories and one institute” (三厂·一所) in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hubei: organised type design as a state publishing task, not a private foundry craft. That essay is in the archive: 京、沪、鄂「三厂·一所」印刷活字设计概况.

Xu Xuecheng (徐学成, 1928–2019)

Xu, born in Wujin, Jiangsu, is the core of the present archive. He studied at East China Art College in Suzhou (华东艺专), worked as a book designer at Shanghai Xinzhishi Press and Shanghai People’s Publishing House, and in 1960 joined the new type studio. He belongs to the first generation of professional Chinese type designers after 1949.

Work associated with him in this archive includes:

Song Yi (宋一体) and Hei Yi (黑一体), 1960–1962, for the revised Cihai (《辞海》): text Song and running-head Hei. Song Yi later grew into a very large character set used for dictionaries.
Song Er (宋二体), 1963–1964, first as a book face, then thickened (宋二粗) for Selected Works of Mao Zedong; the lighter cut (宋二细) became one of the most widely used Chinese text types, including later phototype and digital versions.
Hei Er (黑二体), a more square, writing-derived gothic that later digital Hei families often start from.
Song Hei (宋黑体, 1965), Song Qi (宋七体), title Song, Fangsong, and Kai revisions.
Pen-form standards for simplified characters, which had to sit next to existing traditional sorts.
Five Monotype laser-phototypesetting families (Song, Hei, Fangsong, Kai, Title Song), 1978–, rewritten because metal-type artwork does not survive the optics of photosetting. Account: 蒙纳激光照排字体设计概况.
Bitmap research for national standards GB 5007.1–GB 5007.2-85 (24×24) and related 15×16 / 24×24 datasets; prizes in 1985–1988 from the Ministry of Culture, the National Bureau of Standards, and the National Science and Technology Progress Award.
Xu Ming (徐明体), developed from a 1987 Morisawa prize.

He also wrote for working designers. Books excerpted here: Handbook for Primary and Secondary Art Teachers (1987), How to Write Display Lettering Well (1987, with the pen name 郑华丰), Methods and Uses of Display Lettering (1998), A Collection of Display Lettering (2000). His method essays include 功在当代利在千秋 and 印刷活字设计的「稳、整、匀」 — stable structure, even texture, even colour — a formula taken from institute director Zhu Wenyao (朱文尧) in 1963.

In 2010 he was named a representative inheritor of Shanghai’s intangible-heritage item “the writing craft of printed Chinese characters” (汉字印刷字体书写技艺). He died in 2019. Oral history: 徐学成的故事. Dates: 年表. Drawings and printed proofs: 字体. Photographs and documents: 资料.

A free exhibition of his work was held 7 December 2019 – 5 January 2020 at the institute’s type display room, 60, Lane 1209, Xinzha Road, Jing’an, Shanghai, curated by Li Zhiqian and Xia Shijun. Notes: 展览与活动.

Jin Weimin (金伟民)

A second collection follows Jin Weimin, a later designer at the same institute. Born 1944, he trained in power-plant machinery, entered the institute in 1978 by swapping posts with a staff member there, and moved from the machine shop into the type studio. His adoptive brother was Xie Peiyuan (谢培元), one of the 1960 intake; Xie had already been sharing notes and reference with him for years.

The Jin papers came into the project after his son, Jin Yiji (金颐戟), offered the remaining manuscripts for digitising in 2019. Interviews with father and son (2011, 2019) sit beside drawings and source files. This collection is smaller and still thin in places; empty section fronts in the Chinese tree are empty on the live site too.

How to use this site

The Chinese tree is the catalogue. English is only this page.

Section	What is in it
徐学成档案	Biography, exhibition record, sponsors
1.书籍	Page scans from Xu’s lettering manuals
2.文章	Full essays on type history and method
3.字体	Proofs and drawings, with captions
4.年表	Chronology, 1928–2010
5.故事	Edited interviews
6.资料	Photographs and documents
金伟民的故事	Interview, type drawings, source files

Galleries open a lightbox. Search, under the sidebar, looks through page titles and body text, including this English page.

Names worth searching

People. Xu Xuecheng 徐学成; Jin Weimin 金伟民; Xie Peiyuan 谢培元; Chen Qirui 陈其瑞 (advisor; former institute designer); Zhou Jincai 周今才; Zhang Jiasheng 张家声; He Buyun 何步云; Zhu Wenyao 朱文尧; Wan Qiying 万启盈; Li Zhiqian 厉致谦.

Institutions. Shanghai Printing Technology Research Institute 上海印刷技术研究所; Shanghai Xinzhishi Press; Shanghai People’s Publishing House; Beijing Xinhua Matrix Factory; Shanghai Matrix Factory No. 1; Morisawa; Monotype laser typesetting; Founder Type 方正字库; Hanyi Fonts 汉仪字库.

Typefaces and terms. Song Yi 宋一体; Hei Yi 黑一体; Song Er 宋二体 (fine / bold); Hei Er 黑二体; Song Hei 宋黑体; Song Qi 宋七体; Xu Ming 徐明体; Fangsong 仿宋; Hanwen Kai 汉文正楷; Huawen Kai 华文正楷; Shuei 秀英体; Tsukiji 筑地体; metal type 活字; phototypesetting 照相排版 / 激光照排; bitmap fonts 点阵字; simplified characters 简化字; 稳整匀.

License

Material on this site was gathered, interviewed, photographed, or written during Shanghai Type research. Unless a page says otherwise, it is released under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Credit Shanghai Type and link to shanghaitype.org; no commercial use; share alike. Full terms: 版权声明.

Note on this page

This English page is an AI summary of the Chinese archive. It is meant for search and for readers who need a map. Names, dates, and claims should be checked against the linked originals.