
Tokyo subway’s humble duct-tape typographer - timafuyc
https://medium.com/@chrisgaul/tokyo-subways-humble-duct-tape-typographer-a8c84bb6b99b
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martin_henk
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.

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arfhn
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.

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jcl
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKFgLQVX86U)

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dpau
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...](https://www.hongkongfp.com/2017/04/30/hkfp-lens-late-king-kowloons-
hong-kong-street-calligraphy-part-i/)

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v-yadli
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?

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rootsudo
Yep, they are called radicals.

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wodenokoto
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.

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b_tterc_p
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)?

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innocenat
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.

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fogetti
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.

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aikinai
How would this be a hindrance? If you read it, it helps. If you don’t read it,
it’s not going to hinder anything.

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fogetti
If you have to spend a minute or more to read something which might or might
not be useful, that's an annoyance, I would even say disturbance. Takes
precious time to find the right information in a place where minutes or even
seconds matter. If you never lived in Tokyo then you have no clue what I am
talking about. If you did, you would exactly know what I am talking about.

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aikinai
I've lived in Tokyo for many years and have no idea what you're talking about.
The characters are very peculiar but completely legible at a glance, and the
maps are incredibly informative.

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fogetti
And I was not even the one who said that it's distorted in the first place. It
was the parent comment. Shall I explain that also to you?

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kmnt
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?

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coldtea
> _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

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pier25
> _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...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_average_annual_labor_hours_in_OECD_countries)

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pixelcort
Isn't this distorted by the amount of unreported overtime? Anecdotally many of
my friends in Japan work overtime but don't report it, or report a smaller
overtime amount.

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mnky9800n
Having worked in Japan and USA, Japanese seem more dedicated to taking a
holiday when they have one, also keeping working hours. All my jobs were
academic though so I don't know for companies.

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enz
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.

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

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKFgLQVX86U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKFgLQVX86U)

I guess they can't all be winners.

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analognoise
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.

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rzzzt
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.

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KuhlMensch
This is the instagram hashtag
[https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/%E4%BF%AE%E6%82%A6%E4...](https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/%E4%BF%AE%E6%82%A6%E4%BD%93/)

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

