Hanzi Grids and Extra Fonts

[imron]

I'm currently talking with a font foundry regarding licensing a couple of their fonts for embedding in the PDFs generated by Hanzi Grids.

Ones I am currently considering are:

方正硬笔楷书

方正硬笔行书

and maybe something like 方正大草.

(feel free to have a look at their other fonts and suggest any more that you think might be worthwhile).

However, licensing such fonts would cost a few hundred dollars, and so I'm looking to see firstly if there is any interest in having fonts like this available, and secondly, if so, what people would be prepared to pay (if at all) in order to get access to them.

I imagine I would implement this as a one-time cost, with people who pay getting access to these fonts when creating PDFs, and everyone else just getting the bog-standard Song Ti font you see currently.

So, vote away to let me know what you think, and/or leave a comment below.

[rezaf]

I would pay if you had fonts for traditional characters especially 行書.

[imron]

I'd be looking to get both traditional and simplified. Although such fonts don't contain a full range of characters - typically only around 6,000.

Regarding 行书, is the font above the sort that you're looking for, or would you rather something like this?

[rezaf]

it's fine, however 方正硬笔行书 is more interesting.

[imron]

Great. Thanks for the feedback.

[hbuchtel]

I'd be really interested in the 行书, and to a slightly lesser degree the 楷书. The 草书 looks pretty cool but realistically I don't think I'll ever learn to write like that...

What I like about the 行书 is that it is quite 'cursive', and closer than the 楷书 to the way most people actually write, but still clear enough that it is possible to see the stroke order without having a teacher point it out to you. This would make it possible to learn to write this way on one's own.

Perhaps beginners would be interested in the font that automatically includes Pin-Yin? (here: 方正楷体拼音)

[imron]

The problem with that is 多音字. Also, I plan to add pronunciation myself anyway, so this is probably not so important. If they had one with stroke order, that would be worth considering.

[querido]

I would hope for standard kaiti 方正楷体 as a minimum.

I think any stylization of standard kaiti should be my own. So, after thinking about it, I dislike the 方正硬笔楷书 for this purpose.

I agree with hbuchtel about the 行书.

My vote in your poll will be with the standard kaiti in mind, as (if I use Hanzi Grids) I would not practice a songti!

[Hofmann]

Must it be 方正? Morisawa has the best 楷書 font I've seen.

[querido]

(Asking me? I don't know anything!)

I meant that the plain kaiti as taught to children seems to me to be the right place to start, not a songti, nor an already stylized kaiti; I presume that my own anatomy and taste will lend my own stylization, and that shouldn't be on top of someone else's!

Does anyone agree?

[imron]

Must it be 方正? Morisawa has the best 楷書 font I've seen.

Nope, I'm open to any and all suggestions from people who would be willing to pay a small amount to have a series of decent fonts.

[imron]

Also, there is a freely available Kaiti font, so adding it shouldn't be a problem.

[GaryM]

Although personally I doubt that my hand-writing will ever improve to the standard necessary

to take advantage of it, the 方正硬笔行书 font is my favourite. It is interesting because it is an

example of the "abbreviations" or "continuations" that are deemed acceptable in a cursive style.

Without such an example I would not know what is and isn't acceptable.

I understand entirely what querido means about developing your own style. I just would not

trust myself to know what was "good hand-writing" without having some references.

[Hofmann]

Well I'm not willing to pay just because I can make such grids pretty easily using my own collection of fonts.

[querido]

"Also, there is a freely available Kaiti font, so adding it shouldn't be a problem. "

I see it. Very nice!