DynaFont RareBook Fonts: DFRareBook-Magnolia

#Rare books

It is not difficult to make “white” different.

It is difficult because it needs something else.

It is sharper, like the expired rouge.
It is paler, like the calmness in life.
Lastly, we tailored this different style for it.

DFRareBook-Magnolia comes from the movable Juzgen FangSong type books published by Chunghwa Bookstore in the early 20^th century. The font is energetic to present a demure and elegant spirit. The stroking control is like the majestic comportment of a queen. Are your captivated by it? Read more to find our more charming stories about fonts in the font story below!

Ancient Book Font Series with Endless Stories

Have you ever bought faience with broken corners from a pre-owned product market? They may be imperfect, but time has made them more attractive and captivating, with endless stories behind them. The Ancient Book Series represents the re-thinking of the unchanged technology products inspired by the idea of “re-packing the ancient”. The problem comes, can vector-fonts be inaccurate? In the absence of IT, ancient artisans could still make stunning carvings and movable types. Why can we turn imperfection into perfection?

DynaFont designers thus started a long research of various ancient books everywhere. Eventually, they found five collections of ancient books with elegant and delicately carved fonts from the reprinted versions published by the National Palace Museum and private publishers. These five collections are Thematic Essays from the Yuanfeng Era, Selected Poems of the Tang Dynasty, The Exploitation of the Works of Nature, Complete Library in Four Sections, and Selected Works of Bozi Fan. After six years of further research and remaking, five sets of fonts were developed in the Ancient Book Series and won the Good Design Award in Japan in 2014 for their profound historical value.

In search of the elegance of Song type from Juzhen FangSong

The DFRareBook-Magnolia font comes from the Thematic Essays from the Yuanfeng Era published in Juzgen FangSong type by Chunghwa Bookstore in the early 20^th century. The FangSong type for printing this work is famous for being an intaglio using “Song” type to represent the comfortable, striking, refined and clean type style as found in books published in the Song dynasty. The type was made by the Ding brothers (Fu-zi Ding and Shan-zi Ding) during the late Qing dynasty and early democratic China. In view of the extreme formalism and vulgarism and the lack of ancient elegance of the lead types used on the market, they decided to make movable copper types based on the style of fonts used in a large amount of Song books they bought. Later, they established the Juzhen FangSong Printing House. Although it was acquired by Chunghwa Bookstore, the influence of Juzhen FangSong was spread by Chunghwa Bookstore, which printed a large number of ancient books with the type.

The Ding Brothers: Making Fonts We Use

The Ding brothers were not ordinary merchants! The Juzhen FangSong font they made was the first independent designed “FangSong” font. Are you curious about how they could do that? They actually came from a scholarly family with a collection of 8,000 volumes of books. That is not a surprise for them to have so many books in Song type.

Ding Shan Zhi was the project initiator. At the beginning, he just wanted to publish his father's works. As no types on the market interested him, he discussed with Ding Fu Zhi to make a type of themselves. Fu Zhi was a good calligrapher, good at seal carving, and an oracle maniac. If they were alive today, they would be crazy about the beauty of fonts. Thanks to their special preference to beauty, the Juzhen FangSong re-represented the charm of carvings of the Song dynasty.

*Highly Praised Song Type

Why does Song type earn such critical acclaim? It was because type carvers of the Song dynasty used to imitate the style of famous Kai calligraphers of the Tang dynasty, such as Ouyang Xun, Liu Gongquan, Yan Zhenqing to enrich the beauty of their types. In addition, proofreading was demanding in the Song dynasty and the circulation of books was limited, the value of each page was as valuable as gold. Publishers used to publish more books through copying to increase profit. For this reason, Song type or Song books became a treasure of book lovers.

Features of DFRareBook-Magnolia

The DFRareBook-Magnolia font was completed by digitizing the Thematic Essays from the Yuanfeng Era published in moveable Juzgen FangSong type by Chunghwa Bookstore in the early 20^th century. The appearance of the font is rigid and spacious, like a towering magnolia tree. The Kai shape is like pedals stretching gracefully in different directions. The initial is powerful and the finale is smooth, displaying a classic beauty and an energetic temperament.

▼Examples of DFRareBook-Magnolia:

Usage

The DFRareBook-Magnolia font is great for books and magazines with characters printing horizontally and the contents intending to re-present the ancient type style. The font also fits for traditional craftworks and food packages for its classic elegance.

More Information

DFRareBook- Magnolia (Traditional Chinese)

DFRareBook- Magnolia (Simplified Chinese)

Font Story