The Feeling When Encountering Something New Yet Strange

 

1. New Flavor

I enjoy watching cooking survival programs. Sometimes, judges on these shows make comments like this. "It's a taste I've never experienced before." And then, a moment of silence. "But it's fresh and innovative." Or "Something went wrong. It's the worst food I've ever tasted."
In these brief critiques, the fate of the chef hangs in the balance. I always have a question about these recurring scenes. It's about how one can instantly judge whether something they've never experienced before is good or bad. Given the nature of survival programs, it is natural for judges to give immediate critiques upon tasting. But it feels a bit harsh. And isn't it more likely for someone to perceive something unfamiliar negatively?

However, I also find myself saying things similar sometimes. For example, at the moment I first see a font or a lettering, I judge that it is strange or not good enough. But as time passes, it seems genuinely fresh and attractive. This has often happened to me when I encountered creations of styles I'd never seen before, like the lettering from past eras that I came across while working on this project.

 

 

2. New Old Things

Old things are new. It might sound strange, but it's not like 'an old future'; it's really new. We perceive signs and advertising images from past eras with fresh sensibilities. The way we enjoy previous cultures is undoubtedly different from the people who lived back then. Therefore, I believe that retro-themed creations produced in the present reflect the diverse tastes of the creators living in the current era. Below, I'll show you some unfamiliar letterforms from past eras.

1) Early Grotesque

Here below, the Early Grotesque* style serif typeface is quite different from the Neo-Grotesque** style "Helvetica" that we commonly use today, isn't it?

(Above)1898, 「Gothic No 125」 and (Below)1957, 「Helvetica」

 

*Grotesque : Refers to a style that has the characteristics of serif typefaces used in the early 19th century. It retains features from the transitional period when serif fonts transitioned to sans-serif fonts. Typical examples include Grotesque MT and Franklin Gothic.
**Neo-Grotesque: Refers to a group of sans-serif typefaces that emerged in the mid-20th century with refined forms. Helvetica and Univers, which developed based on the early serif Grotesque type, are examples of this category.
Reference: Kim Hyunmi, Exploring a New Classification System for Latin Typefaces -Focused on the Vox-ATypI Classification-, 2014, p.97

2) Fresh and Charming 1900s Lettering

Source: National Folk Museum of Korea

 

 

 

3. The Relationship Between Retro and 「SD Cohhee」

The typeface in the 1892 specimen book of "Central Type Foundry and Boston Type Foundry"

 

The typefaces of Art Deco and Psychedelic style within the 1962 specimen book of "Typefounders of Chicago."

 

Do you know the various styles that have flavored different eras, such as Art Deco, Futurism, Psychedelic, and Y2K? Many creators still enjoy to recreate past styles with nostalgia in their work.

「Cohhee」 also wanted to be a useful material for such work. When mentioning Sandoll's representative best-selling fonts, one might miss the retro concepts of 「Sandoll GyeokdongGothic」, 「Sandoll CheongRyu」, 「Sandoll Rotary」. While following these fonts' retro concepts, 「Cohhee」 aimed to express a different sentiment. The name 「Cohhee」 was inspired by retro advertising narration. It felt like speaking slowly and gently dragging the copy, much like the characteristic of that era. I literally wrote down 'coffee' as it's drawn out slowly. The font's wide horizontal aspect also fits well. Perhaps drinking quite a bit of coffee during its production contributed to this.

「Cohhee」 chose the era of the 1950s and 1960s. It was created by reinterpreting the original lettering drawings from that era. I hope viewers will think, 'Ah, I can feel the nostalgia,' but I didn't aim to reproduce the original lettering forms 100%. Therefore, I selected several original lettering drawings that would serve as motifs at the draft stage. Then I decided which elements of the original drawings to incorporate and which to discard.

The criterion for selection is "I want users to feel ◌◌ when they see this font." I experiment by adding and removing various elements. Some elements are emphasized, while others are reduced to mere traces. This process of customization aims to achieve the impression I desire. Through this process, a certain degree of reinterpretation naturally occurs.

Here is the subjective ratio of mixing old and new that I feel.

 

 

4. ‘◌◌’ of 「SD Cohhee」

Think about 「SD Cohhee」 in 2023, after living in the 1950s and 1960s. What would 「Cohhee」's attitude toward the world be? Sometimes, I indulge in such imaginations. I wish it would be kind to lovely, quirky, and lively things. Yet, it still feels more familiar to use strange words like ice cream and supermarket. Below are some parts where I and the original drawings have come together to showcase '◌◌'.

 

 

 

5. Me and the Original Drawings: Restoration and Interpretation

1) Roundness of Corners

「Cohhee」 is a font with rounded corners, where the strokes' ends and corners are rounded in a round style. Especially, curvature is applied to both the inner and outer lines of the corners of the characters. Take a look at 「Sandoll Gogo」, a font with a similar ‘round’ style like Cohhee. Only the outside strokes of the corners are rounded, while the inside remains straight. It neatly displays the narrow and intricate spaces within the characters.

「Sandoll GogoRoundCond」와 「SD Cohhee」

 

 However, 「Cohhee」 rounded both the inside and outside corners, without exception, even in the tiny corners of the "빵" (ppang) pair of characters. As the curves within the characters increased, 「Cohhee」's smooth and friendly impression was emphasized on the page. Doesn't the large sweeping curve remind you of the letters on the window sheets of an old laundry or on the signboards of bakeries?

2) Short Horizontal Strokes and Long Short Vertical Strokes

It's always a dilemma. When creating Korean derivatives, the appropriate length of the horizontal strokes and short vertical strokes is a concern.

Of course, this varies depending on the font's characteristics. 「Cohhee」 is characterized by wide spaces between the initial and medial consonants, contrasting with short horizontal strokes. Compared to typical Ming-style fonts, the horizontal strokes are shorter, giving the impression of being cut off.

 

 In terms of the range where the character is identifiable, I set it to appear as short as possible based on the standard size.

Why? Because I determined that it was one of the elements found in the original design that makes the character look incredibly cute. If this rule were to be applied directly to vertical strokes in vertical writing, characters like '고' would also need to have shorter vertical strokes.

Source: 'National Folk Museum of Korea'

 

However, unlike in the previous era of lettering where horizontal space was generously used, this rule does not apply when distributing vertical space. The distance between short vertical strokes and consonant-vowel combinations is very close. I have taken this as another characteristic of 「Cohhee」.

 

Horizontal space is ample, while vertical space is tight. These two rules coexist harmoniously within a single character. Do you notice the contrast when looking at the two strokes together? Isn't this gap as intriguing as a child's mind eagerly switching between hot and cold baths in a bathhouse?
 

3) The Bulging 'ㅇ'

 

This is my favorite aspect of the design. It's the 'ㅇ', stretching its mouth wide like a bulging rice cake.

When typeset in a sentence, the refreshing 'ㅇ' stands out like a well-kept garden. You might even sense a bit of a burdensome cry, saying, "Look at me!" Yet, combined with other features of 「Cohhee」, it doesn't feel bad. 'ㅇ' is one of the most frequently occurring characters. Consequently, when examining lettering specimens, you might notice that the consistency of 'ㅇ' curvature within various typefaces is particularly low. In some letterings, both ends of 'ㅇ' become pointed, with a reversal in the thickness of the horizontal and vertical strokes, and the transition doesn't seem natural. Also, 'ㅇ' of slightly different thicknesses are not uncommon.

「Cohhee」 also reflects this by dynamically adjusting the rules of 'ㅇ' within the font. When occupying a large space, it's set like a round garden resembling a full moon, while in a small space, it's shaped like a flat oval like a UFO. While maintaining this rule, efforts were made to create natural curves of the circle for each typeface.

4) English Characters That Are Not In The Specimen

There were no English characters in the lettering specimen, so designing Latin required a bit more imagination.

The approach to mixing Latin and Korean within a single font depends on the design direction. 「Cohhee」 chose a direction that aligns the physical width of Korean almost parallel to Latin, even when the inter-character spacing of Latin is increased compared to Korean. This was thought to maintain a consistent width of the font overall while preserving the retro impression of Korean. Except for i, j, and l, it has a cute monospace-like width, similar to n. Maintaining a wide proportion up to i, j, and l could make the typesetting feel too monotonous and uniform, so it was used as a slightly unconventional element to avoid that feeling.

Due to these characteristics, the English characters of 「Cohhee」 stand out well when used alongside Korean at a large size.

 

5) 「SD Cohhee」 in Wonderland

Through multiple rounds of feedback and collaborative work sessions, I often used the words "ugly" and "clumsy" a lot to describe 「Cohhee」. It was a tone akin to expressing affection while saying, "Oh, he's really ugly," while looking at a cute yet scruffy cat yawning in a photo. Nonetheless, it would have been better to consider if there were more appropriate words to describe it than using those expressions.

Looking back, what might have been the reason for using such expressions?

Perhaps it was because it felt like a departure from the "ordinary" category, a new form, which naturally led to the use of such vocabulary. Also, I think at that time, the rules for Korean typefaces were not widely established yet.

Of course, in Korean lettering, there is room for deliberately deviating from design uniformity or creating extreme stroke contrasts, allowing for free expression beyond norms. However, in lettering from that era, you'll often find many unfamiliar forms that disregard the rules commonly adhered to in modern Korean typefaces. However, as the project progressed, it became apparent that those forms might have appeared quite natural to users at the time. Therefore, it's difficult to assertively label them as incomplete, lacking, or crude from today's perspective.

With its short ascenders and tall descenders, dough-like "ㅇ", and inconsistent "ㄹ", 「Cohhee」 may seem unfamiliar to some, but I hope it remains a cute font nonetheless.

[Spoiler] It may be appeared like "Ta-da" with a bold weight...

 

Author: Hyeeun Lim, Sandoll Planning and Operations Team