【Video】Lee Kin Ming | Repairing, evolving and circulating Hong Kong fonts
Lee Kin Ming is the founder of ‘Li Hon’s street calligraphy conservation project’. He has worked in his father’s signage shop since young and has recently started to digitise Mr Lee Hon’s calligraphy and has started a crowdfund. He wrote the book Looking at Hong Kong’s Signage to record Hong Kong’s signage history.
“I used to think that Hongkongers would not pay for fonts, but I was wrong. I discovered that Hongkongers truly treasure what they have.”
Journalist: Mehporpor
Translator: Zucchhi
Videographer: Crazy Man, Rachel
Video Editor: LazyAss
Photos: Onehungrycoconut, Rachel
Editorial: Zucchhi, Sam, Firefly
Production: Onehungrycoconut, JM
Creating fonts is a tedious and arduous process that is costly and requires a lot of time. However, after it is released, the creator is unable to prevent others from copying their work; the risk and the resulting potential for it to not be profitable deter many from trying. Even so, when I think of Uncle Lee Hon’s brush calligraphy, which he painstakingly created for others to use, I feel it’s such a waste to be hidden away in a drawer, so I try my best to persevere in this endeavour.
Mr Lee Hon was a streetside writer from Hong Kong’s yesteryears. He knew my father, a handmade signage maker, and they often collaborated together. As he neared retirement, he worried that my father wouldn’t have his brush calligraphy to use and that the signage would lack continuity in font and style, so he painstakingly created templates for my father which have been kept until now. After Uncle Lee Hon passed away, I began to digitize his brush calligraphy in 2015 and started to research how to distribute the font so that others could use it. It has slowly morphed into the crowdfunding plan today.
The crowdfunding has reached its goal which feels like a dream. The response and encouragement I received from Hongkongers is beyond what I had imagined and I’ve been overjoyed. It has also been a bastion of support for Hongkongers working in typography. I’m lucky as I’ve received a lot of help and support, and I also found a lot of online materials for self-learning while I was creating this. Hong Kong actually has a lot of typeface creators far more skilled than I am, such as Kitman of Kit Da Sketch whose brand and product are doing very well. I hope many more crowdfunding efforts in typography are successful and that more people will continue to create fonts for Hongkongers. I used to think that Hongkongers would not pay for fonts, but I was wrong. I discovered that Hongkongers truly treasure what they have.
Nostalgia is a very interesting feeling. We like to reminisce about the cafes and small shops of old Hong Kong nowadays, much like how old signage contains our feelings for the Hong Kong of the past. The famous neon signs of old Hong Kong have mostly been demolished. Even handmade signs are just limited to Sheung Wan and around To Kwa Wan, a testament to the loss of old landscapes. We might mourn the loss of an era or some signage, but after I read about the history of the signage industry, I discovered that change is inevitable. For example, signage was made of wood and vertically-oriented before the war, while coloured or painted signs became horizontally-oriented when I was young. The face of the city changed according to these adaptations. In 2010, the government began to strictly regulate signage and civil planners were addicted to ‘cleanliness’, adopting a policy of removing the chaotically organized landscape. Regulation caused the streetscape to lose its uniqueness and become empty, but there were legitimate security concerns behind this policy. The oft-used phrase of “how many people would be squashed if a sign were to fall down” does indeed reflect the need for such a policy.
I can’t stop the old signage from being demolished, but my hope through creating “Lee Hon Kong Kai” is to have the typefaces of yesteryear appear on new signage and have a bit of the old reappear on Hong Kong’s streets, so that we can appreciate what is precious to us with a new interpretation. I am not resistant to change. I think there is value in modern signage designs, but they are everywhere, and we simply no longer pay attention to them. I once accidentally ended up in Kwai Chung’s Lai Yiu Estate where I spent my childhood, and suddenly thought “Have these signs always been so pretty? Why didn’t I think that in the past?” It’s hard to say, but maybe in the future, people will have a certain attachment to the ugly LED signs of today.
In the first few years when I started researching fonts and signage, I interviewed some old signmaking masters and collated their stories into a book. Master Mak, who wrote minibus signs, left the deepest impression on me. He told me that the large signs up to five or six stories long on different buildings were all his creations. It was a humbling experience and introduced me to an unimaginable level of mastery. Even so, I’m adept at chatting people up. As someone akin to a sports commentator, I may not have the most outstanding footwork, but I am still able to categorize, record, and teach others to appreciate the beauty of Hong Kong’s signage. I can’t say that I’m effecting any changes, but I still hope to make a difference. Some say to us: “Whoa, Lee Hon font’s design is so outdated.” It was then when I realized that even dated things can be a design and there are still supporters of it. I finally found my place. To be honest, Mr Lee Hon was only a streetside writer. He wasn’t famous, nor was his writing the best, but his greatest contribution is leaving his font with us. If others are also willing to pass on their craft, while improving and further developing these techniques, they would achieve greater success and value.
We can now see the bigger picture. Signage is no longer just signage, but print media— similar to graffiti art, stained glass, and large scale advertisements. They are ubiquitous and allow ordinary people to come in contact with unique typographic designs. I think we can pay more attention to Hong Kong’s typographic designs, contribute to crowdfunding efforts as well as collect old signage. Most importantly, we can do more research, read more books and attend more exhibitions to cultivate our aesthetic sense. I hope that if you become a business owner one day, you won’t choose an ugly font as the standards today are too low! The current definition of signage is broader than before and there can be more exchange of ideas within and without the industry. If we broaden our horizons, we may find, in fact, that Hong Kong isn’t on the decline after all.
“I am Lee Kin Ming. I am a HKer. ”
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This article was featured on Apply Daily English Version. See the article @ https://hk.appledaily.com/news/20201121/KJLMHXBEGJAKNEH4BPHDBHLJCU/