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🧵 Thread (9 tweets)
does anybody know the origin story behind the "kung fu" font? who was the first person who came up with it? this one is called "Ginko", then there are all these "Asian style fonts", "Chinese style fonts"... what's the story here? "Wonton fonts"... https://t.co/WYWfEAFqhs
I was thinking about this again because I saw this font used by Chinese Singaporeans on marketing material for Chinese New Year - which I thought was funny and interesting because there’s no way the Chinese would’ve come up with this font on their own https://t.co/WPXGTU9YiS
via @rutherfordcraze, this seems to be the oldest known eg of it from 1899 "By the end of WWI, chop suey lettering = synonymous with SF's Chinatown." "The new Chinatown was flamboyantly, theatrically "Chinese," complete with pagoda roofs & other exaggerated, stylized details." https://t.co/H1GDg9ILuy
*adds "visit Chinatown" to SF todo list* 1965, 1900, 2000s, postcard from 1935 https://t.co/qO6EVLKoIO
Aha, I have found the search terms I needed – "cleveland type foundry". 1883 https://t.co/OEugAOnxp0 https://t.co/eUMm6TbKzL
1. I had an idle curiosity 2. googled around (i'm usually pretty good), couldn't find anything 3. tweeted about it 4. someone @-mentioned a typography specialist who pointed me in the right direction 5. I find out the answer and share it all in ~2hrs, while I do other things
The opposite of chop suey fonts https://t.co/351GDseCai
