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Open Huninn: An Open-Source Traditional Chinese Rounded Typeface

Open Huninn (open 粉圓) is a Traditional Chinese open-source typeface released by justfont, designed to meet the localization needs of Traditional Chinese as used in Taiwan. It is based on existing open-source fonts, including Kosugi Maru (小杉丸ゴシック) by MOTOYA and Varela Round by Joe Prince and Avraham Cornfeld.

Our team modified the shape of glyphs and added over 2,700 characters and symbols to better align with common usage in Taiwan. The project was supported by backers during 2015 Jin-Xuan Typeface (金萱) Crowdfunding Project, making this font a collaborative gift to the Taiwanese community.

As a typeface designer and engineer, I played an active role in this project. My contributions included designing several glyphs, ensuring they met both aesthetic and functional requirements for various applications. I also assisted in packaging the font and testing it across different software to ensure consistent performance and quality.

Traditional Chinese Open-Source Typeface

Typography needs to be audible.

Typography needs to be felt.

Typography needs to be experienced.

Designing a Traditional Chinese typeface is significantly more complex than designing a Latin typeface. While Latin typefaces typically require around 500 characters for daily use, a functional Traditional Chinese typeface needs at least 7,000 characters for basic communication. For magazines and newspapers, which may include rare characters, it might require more than 15,000 characters.

Imagine a well-trained typeface designer designing only about 20 to 40 characters per day. Even with a team, it required a lot of man-hours to complete a mature product. This demand makes it challenging for many studios and designers to invest in developing Chinese typefaces, including open-source ones.

Only large companies like Google and Adobe have the resources to contribute to open-source projects, as seen with the popular Noto Fonts (思源系列字型家族).

Noto Font Family.
Noto Font Family

Regional Differences of Chinese Characters

Chinese characters are used in the writing systems of several East Asian languages, including Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean. But the standards and styles vary significantly between regions. This is somewhat similar to the spelling differences between American and British English, like color and colour, but in the case of Chinese characters, the differences are in the shape of glyphs rather than the spelling.

Noto Sans is available for multiple languages, including American English and British English, both of which use the same glyphs. However, Noto includes distinct versions for Japanese (JP, 漢字, Kanji), Simplified Chinese (SC, 汉字, Hànzì), Korean (KR, 한자, Hanja), Traditional Chinese for Taiwan (TC, 漢字, Han4-tzu4), and Traditional Chinese for Hong Kong (HK, 漢字, Hon jih), each tailored to different regional standards.

Differences between the same CJK character with the same code point in different regions of Noto Sans.

Differences between the same CJK character with the same code point in different regions of Noto Sans.

A closer condition to Chinese characters is Cyrillic alphabet, which has distinct forms in Bulgarian and Russian.

Russian and Bulgarian versions of Cyrillic script: Red text indicates different standard writing styles; Green text highlights letters unique to the respective alphabet.

Russian and Bulgarian versions of Cyrillic script: Red text indicates different standard writing styles; Green text highlights letters unique to the respective alphabet.

Due to Unicode unified framework, where one glyph corresponds to one code point, these regional variations are often managed through different typefaces.

While some open-source typefaces have been released by Japanese designers, their character styles do not align with typical Taiwanese practice. Moreover, the number of Kanji characters commonly used in Japanese is fewer than the number of Chinese characters used in Mandarin, leading to a lack of necessary glyphs when Taiwanese users attempt to use a Japanese font.

Writing System of Taiwanese Languages

Our team is deeply committed to promoting and preserving Taiwanese culture, which made it essential for us to develop a typeface specifically for Taiwanese users. This typeface includes not only Chinese characters but also the phonetic systems used for Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, and indigenous languages in Taiwan, which require additional characters not covered by standard Latin typefaces.

Currently, open-source Traditional Chinese fonts like Source Han Sans (思源黑體) and Source Han Serif (思源宋體) cover the basic needs for modern (Sans-Serif style) and traditional (Serif styles). Recognizing the significant demand for additional font styles, we decided to develop the Rounded style.

What We Did?

  1. Glyphs Expansion: Around 2,700 additional characters, including commonly used Traditional Chinese characters in Taiwan and Taiwanese Hokkien characters, have been added. Additionally, Bopomofo and Taiwanese Romanization symbols were designed.
Top: Kosugi Maru; Bottom: Open Huninn. Missing glyphs will be displayed as Tofu, demonstrating that using Japanese fonts in daily Taiwan often results in missing glyphs.

Top: Kosugi Maru; Bottom: Open Huninn. Missing glyphs will be displayed as Tofu, demonstrating that using Japanese fonts in daily Taiwan often results in missing glyphs.

  1. Design Refinements: The character designs have been refined and optimized to ensure improved legibility and visual harmony. This process included adjustments to stroke weight, character spacing, and overall glyph proportions, resulting in a typeface that is both functional and visually appealing.
Left: Kosugi Maru; Right: Open Huninn. Kosugi Maru is an older font with many design compromises made for early low-resolution screens, such as thicker outer strokes and thinner inner strokes for enclosed characters. For modern printing and high-resolution screens, Open Huninn adjustments to the overall weight and stroke balance are necessary.

Left: Kosugi Maru; Right: Open Huninn. Kosugi Maru is an older font with many design compromises made for early low-resolution screens, such as thicker outer strokes and thinner inner strokes for enclosed characters. For modern printing and high-resolution screens, Open Huninn adjustments to the overall weight and stroke balance are necessary.

  1. Typography Adjustment: The original punctuation marks in Kosugi Maru were designed for Japanese, while Open Huninn has been modified to use Traditional Chinese punctuation.
Left: Kosugi Maru; Right: Open Huninn. Japanese punctuation is typically positioned in the lower-left corner of the grid, while Taiwanese punctuation is usually centered within the grid. We have adjusted the punctuation to be centered in order to align with Taiwan's typesetting rules.

Left: Kosugi Maru; Right: Open Huninn. Japanese punctuation is typically positioned in the lower-left corner of the grid, while Taiwanese punctuation is usually centered within the grid. We have adjusted the punctuation to be centered in order to align with Taiwan's typesetting rules.

Spirit of Open-Source

Our efforts resulted in Open Huninn typeface, which was released under SIL Open Font License 1.1. Under this license, everyone is free to:

  • Use Freely: Users can use or download this typeface freely without the need to pay, notify, or credit us. It can also be used for commercial purposes, as long as the typeface itself is not sold as a product.
  • Distribute Freely: Users are free to share, copy, and install this typeface on any software or hardware.
  • Modify Freely: Users can modify the typeface and create derivative works, but the modified typeface must also be released under the same SIL Open Font License.

Since the release of Open Huninn, we have received numerous messages from users expressing appreciation for its application in Taiwanese society. More importantly, many new derivative typefaces have been developed based on our font, such as Inherit TangYuan made by NightFurySL2001 and TaiwanPearl made by max32002, showing the spirit of open-source.