Why Don’t We Use a Chinky Font?

Happy Chinese New Year to those who celebrate it! I didn’t plan on posting anything about Chinese New Year today until I saw this a few minutes ago.

I don’t want to seem ultra-sensitive or too politically correct or whatever, but really? This font? I’m not going to go too deep into it in this post, but it still needs to be mentioned.

My request is simply this: can we just not use this type of fonts? At least for sites like msn; I can see it (and I have seen it) being used on the Simpsons, but there’s a difference. And while I remember being fascinated by doing lettering like this in handmade school posters in middle school to show my roots, I have since known better that this more or less perpetuate the old stereotype of how Americans have thought of Chinese and Asians.

While it is a nicer version of the typefaces in this style (maybe just the “2008”), I still think it’s too much. If I had to think of a visual substitute right off the top of my head, I would suggest Optima. It’s a significant downgrade, but it still gives off that essence without jumping at your face.

Here’s my disclaimer on this post: While I am an Asian American, I do not represent all Asian Americans. I’m sure there are some who do not find this offensive at all, or that some don’t even care. But as someone who does care, I think this is not appropriate for institutions like msn, not anymore at this day and age. I’m speaking as someone who is concerned about this topic, because I feel that if I don’t say anything, no one else will.

Flush.

Take Back “Intelligent Design”

I think we should take back the term “intelligent design,” even though we didn’t really use it, unless you’re occasionally describing a piece of really good and clever and functional design. Nonetheless, I think this really confuses young designers and non-designers looking up things related to design.

I’m not necessarily pushing for this from a religious platform, but from more of a language/verbal stand point. I know that this term has already been used enough to describe creationism and related subjects, but I think that there’s still time to take this word back (or just take it for the first time) and use it to our advantage. If we use it right, we just might skip over the middle transition point where people get confused as to what “intelligent design” means and why it means what it means, and just claim it as ours (designers) as something that we always strive to reach in our work.

P.S. This suggestion of taking the term back was not originally from me; it was from a guest speaker (whom I’ve mentioned in this blog) when I was still at Davis.

Flush.