The “jf open 粉圓 (jf open Huninn)” is an open-source Traditional Chinese typeface project developed by justfont. This project was initiated as a way to give back to the community following the success of the 2015 crowdfunding campaign for JinXuan. As promised, an open-source font optimized for Taiwanese users was created and given as a gift to the Taiwanese community.
The typeface is based on the Japanese existing open-source font “Kosugi Maru (小杉丸ゴシック)”, originally developed by Motoya Co., Ltd and the Latin characters were replaced with another open-source font, “Varela Round,” designed by Joe Prince and Avraham Cornfeld, to ensure a cohesive and high-quality bilingual experience. The name “粉圓 (Huninn)” is inspired by the Taiwanese term for tapioca pearls, reflecting a playful nod to local culture.
Modify Existing Fonts for Taiwanese Needs
Adapting Japanese fonts to meet Taiwanese needs arises from Taiwan’s distinct linguistic, cultural, and practical demands, where Traditional Chinese serves as the primary script. Although Japanese and Traditional Chinese share certain characters—known as Kanji in Japanese and Hanzi in Chinese—their applications, stylistic preferences, and typographic norms diverge considerably.
To create a high-quality, open-source font that caters to Taiwanese users, we must ensure it is both accessible and optimized for typesetting in Traditional Chinese. This involves repositioning punctuation marks, incorporating a wide range of characters specific to Traditional Chinese as used in Taiwan, and enhancing the overall quality of the existing Chinese characters.
What Changes Have We Made?
The design process involved reworking the original Kosugi Maru font, which featured uneven stroke weights and a distinctly Japanese aesthetic, to better suit Taiwanese typographic tastes. Additionally, justfont enhanced the font’s grayscale rendering and repositioned punctuation to conform to Traditional Chinese standards, improving its practicality for local uses such as documents, web design, and signage.
- Glyph Expansion: Building on this base, justfont tailored the font for everyday use in Taiwan. They expanded it by incorporating 1,477 frequently used Traditional Chinese characters, Taiwanese-specific phonetic symbols like Bopomofo Bopomofo, also known as Zhuyin, is a phonetic system used in Taiwan, to represent the sounds of Mandarin Chinese. It’s not a word with a direct “meaning” but a tool for pronunciation. Each symbol corresponds to a specific sound, like “ㄅ (bō)” for the “b” sound, “ㄆ (pō) for “p,” and so on. It’s often used in Taiwan to teach Chinese or annotate characters with their pronunciations., and characters for Taiwanese Hokkien Romanization (Tai-lo). In total, our team refined glyph shapes and added over 2,700 characters and symbols to better reflect common usage in Taiwan.
- Design Refinements: The character designs were polished to enhance legibility and visual balance. This included fine-tuning stroke weights, adjusting character spacing, and optimizing glyph proportions for a typeface that is both practical and aesthetically pleasing. Significant effort went into refining the “grayscale” of the characters, addressing the original’s inconsistent stroke thicknesses. We meticulously adjusted each stroke to achieve a more uniform and ideal appearance, ensuring that no characters appear overly dark or faint.
- Typesetting Adjustments: The original Kosugi Maru punctuation, designed for Japanese, positioned marks off-center within the grid. To align with Taiwan’s typesetting conventions, which require centered punctuation, we made key adjustments in developing open Huninn. These changes ensure the typeface meets the needs of our local audience effectively.
The Power of Open-Source Project
Released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 (OFL 1.1), jf open Huninn is freely available for anyone to use without restrictions. It can be downloaded and used at no cost, with no requirement to notify or credit us. It is also suitable for commercial projects, as long as the typeface itself is not sold as a standalone product. Users are free to copy, distribute, and install it on any device or software without limitations. Additionally, the typeface can be modified or used as the basis for new works, provided that any derivatives are shared under the same SIL Open Font License.
The latest version is available for download from justfont’s official site or its GitHub page. First launched as v1.0 on March 14, 2020, Open Huninn has evolved through updates, incorporating new characters and refinements, with the most recent release, v2.1, on September 19, 2024. This rounded typeface strikes a balance between charm and clarity, serving as a standout example of how open-source collaboration can enrich local design resources.
