Star fonts open IP font era destroy or promote character culture?

< span > Mao not easy < / span >

in the "Infinite Song and Ballad season" recently broadcast by Jiangsu Satellite TV, there is a rare personal font in the subtitles of the lyrics-Han Yi Mao is not easy to write by hand.

creating fonts for stars and using them in QQ, TV subtitles, mobile phones and other environments has become a new phenomenon. Whether the star font "tarnishes" the character culture, or promotes the character culture, attracts people's attention.

< strong > the star font is "< / strong > < strong> calligraphy artifact" < / strong >

it is not easy to ask for Mao's calligraphy. It is very popular among Mao's fans these days as an artifact of practicing Chinese characters. "as a word controller, I really want word posters." my words are so ugly that I can't gain a foothold in front of the students. "imitating teacher Mao's calligraphy. I feel that I can get two or three more points in the college entrance examination composition." fans express their feelings through Weibo.

in January this year, singer Mao difficult to announce that his handwriting will be included in the font, while netizens commented that judging from Mao's handwriting, the handwriting is powerful and elegant. Mao is not the first star to launch personal fonts. As early as April 2007, a simplified style of founder Jinglei was called the first real personal calligraphy computer font product in China. In recent years, the handwriting of nearly 20 stars, such as Guo Jingming, Jing Beran, Yi Yi Qianxi, Zhao Liying, Tang Yan, Zhang Jie and so on, have become font products. Jing Beran's agent revealed that Jing Beran's income from the introduction of personal fonts was 800000 yuan, which was later donated in full.

with regard to star fonts, experts have their own comments: Jing Beran's font is a fresh and elegant handwriting, like Jing Beran's impression, frank and restrained; easy to close Qianxi typeface, maybe his pen tip is still a little childish, but the very elegant strokes and smooth lines also have a sense of beauty.

< span > Mao not easy fonts < / span >

< strong > the selected stars should be in the flow" head "< / strong >

" this is an innovative product category, and it is also a business model in which stars drive font consumption. " Xie Liqun, CEO of Hanyi font, said.

Zhou Hongquan, chief technical officer of Hanyi font, recalled that he worked with Tencent to develop ultra-small font technology a few years ago. "the feature of this technology is that each set of words will be made very small so that it can be transmitted quickly in QQ." With the maturity of this technology, the interaction and sharing of personalized fonts has become fashionable, and the personalized needs of users have been met. "We later thought that stars have fans, and fans are willing to pay if star fonts are developed."

Xie Liqun reveals that choosing a star font is not a star who can write, and several conditions must be met. First of all, the star should be in the "head". "the star fans are younger, and the older generation of artists have a lot of good handwriting." but fans don't know them, just worse from a commercial point of view. " In addition, the handwriting should be good-looking, at least not too bad. "there are stars whose characters simply can't be made into a font, and they don't want to."

if the handwriting is relatively good and the copyright price is right, the cooperation between the star and the font company will be done. Star time is precious, but to become a set of fonts, it is necessary to write at least 7,000 Chinese characters. It is not realistic to let the stars write word by word, not to mention that once the writing interval is too long, there will be differences in handwriting. Zhou Hongquan said that font companies generally require stars to write 700 words, then automatically analyze styles and strokes, comb through them, and produce a complete set of fonts. "unlike designed characters, star fonts are all handwritten, and line style requirements are not strict." The completion time of a star font is about half a month.

< strong > Star fonts open the era of IP fonts < / strong >

although star fonts look hot on the outside, industry insiders reveal that some difficulties or bottlenecks have been encountered in the market development and development of star fonts.

Zhou Hongquan boils down to two reasons: on the one hand, the freshness of fans is decreasing. "people use it when they first go online, but after putting on a lot of fonts, users will be relatively tired." In his opinion, the handwriting of some stars is indeed relatively ordinary. On the other hand, star fonts and standard Chinese characters are not in tune, and it is very difficult to standardize children's writing through stars. "when the Qianxi font was launched last year, fans were encouraged to practice their characters, but it is really hard to say how long this situation will last."

font companies are also increasingly aware that fonts are different from fame and face, and it is becoming more and more difficult to find stars who not only have enough influence, but also have to write well. Zhou Hong took an inventory of more than a dozen star fonts launched by the Hanyi font library, including Guo Jingming, Jing Beran, Yi Qianxi and other fonts.

however, the era of IP fonts started by star fonts continues. Fans are familiar with developing fonts based on elements in popular TV dramas and movies. For example, the TV series "three generations and Ten Mile Peach Blossom" has developed "Ten Mile Peach Blossom", which is still being downloaded and used by users. "for fonts to have vitality, it is necessary to involve more people, especially young people." Zhou Hongquan said.

< strong > more stars should be encouraged to produce fonts < / strong >

"the emergence of star fonts is a collusion between font enterprises and stars, and everyone takes what they need." Guo Min, the person in charge of Sogou Input's content platform "word Media", made a judgment.

in Guo Min's view, calligraphy practice, which seems far away to some people, has actually been greatly promoted through "Wechat sign-in" and "character practice WeChat group". "A lot of people around me are practicing calligraphy every day." In his view, the emergence and prosperity of star fonts objectively led to people's attention to Chinese characters, but also contributed to the promotion of writing and practicing characters.

the fact is that the emergence of star fonts has also sparked controversy. Some netizens commented that some star fonts were ugly and destroyed the character culture. The reporter interviewed a number of font designers, they all do not understand the star font, do not pay attention to. But Guo Min believes that if we say "defile" the word culture, most ordinary people are constantly "tarnishing" it. "among the so-called star fonts that appear on the market now, we do not see any star characters that are so ugly that they are indignant to both people and gods. At most, they are 'ordinary'. Among them, there are many star characters that are very good-looking, such as Jing Beran's."

"Society should encourage more stars to publish their own fonts." Guo Min believes that when stars show their writing, writing, painting, music skills, etc., instead of just showing their faces in front of the camera, it will be a very interesting and elegant thing, "isn't that what we all expect in such a society?"