Uniqlo logo

  Uniqlo was originally designed to appeal to young Japanese who loved foreign things. The names is derived from “unique clothing” and the original logo, designed in 1991, was written only in English.

  When Sato began his redesign, the first thing he changed was the colour. Instead of the deeper red, he switched to a brighter shade to match the rising sun of the Japanese flag. To continue with this cultural export, he added a second version of the name to sit next to the English letters  written in Katakana, a set of characters used in Japan to represent foreign words. And his final touch was to keep the two versions of the name in red squares, imitating the Japanese chops or seals used to sign documents and works of art.

  Basically, adding multi language in the logo is because it can show more cultural for a country to other foreigners.

Structure of Chinese characters writing

  The structures of Chinese characters roughly can be divided into two different kinds, which are the single component (獨體字) and the compound (合體字). The single component refers to the characters that have only one complete and independent component, while the compound refers to the those characters that have more than one component. Despite that there is a small amount of single component, most of them are widely used or act as a part of the compound character.

Examples:

1. Left-Right Structure

2. Top-Bottom Structure

3. Enclosed Structure

3. Enclosed Structure

4. Top-Middle-Bottom Structure

5. Left-Middle-Right Structure

More about Kaishu

  Kaishu, (Chinese: “regular script”)Wade-Giles romanisation k’ai-shu, in Chinese calligraphy, a stylisation of chancery script developed during the period of the Three Kingdoms and Western Jin (220–316/317) that simplified the Lishu script into a more fluent and easily written form. Characterised by clear-cut corners and straight strokes of varying thickness, the Kaishu script underwent its most vital period of development and was the most important type of script during the Tang dynasty (618–907), when a successful career in the civil service depended in part on one’s skill as a calligrapher. It remains the standard script in use today and the model for public function and printed type.

How the characters transformed

  The first four phases of Chinese writing trace the first 1,500-year history of Chinese and essentially encompass the evolution from a nascent pictographic and ambiguous writing script to a standardised system containing thousands of characters still in use today.

-Jiaguwen (甲骨文), or Oracle Bone Script. This is the earliest form of Chinese writing, used from the Middle to Late Shang dynasty (approximately 1500 BCE to 1000 BCE). This script was etched onto turtle shells and animals bones, which were then used for divination in the royal Shang court, hence the name "oracle bones". Consequently, scholars have been using oracle bones as historical documents to investigate the reigns of later Shang monarchs, and surprisingly confirming the veracity of the traditional list of Chinese emperors that was deemed mythological rather than historical. The shape of these characters are often described as "pictographic", in that they resemble stylised drawings of objects they represent.

-Dazhuan (大篆), or Greater Seal. This stage of Chinese writing flourished from the Late Shang to the Western Chou dynasties (1100 BCE to 700 BCE). Unlike Jiaguwen, which was carved on bones, Dazhuan mainly appeared on cast bronze vessels. In fact, Jiaguwen and Dazhuan overlapped in time, and they might have been the same script but as they were inscribed on different materials their visual styles differ due to the quality of the surfaces.

-Xiaozhuan (小篆), or Lesser Seal. This elegant script is the direct parent of the modern, unsimplified Chinese script. Not only are Xiaozhuan characters are more stylized and less "pictographic" like Jiaguwen and Dazhuan, but also exhibits systematic and extensive use of radicals much like modern Chinese. This script has survived the passage of time and continues to be used in the present age in calligraphy and seals.

-Lishu (隸書), or Clerkly Script. As its name implies, this script was used by government bureaucrats. While it probably appeared at approximately 500 BCE, Lishu became widely used in the Qin (221 to 207 BCE) and Han (206 BCE to 220 CE) dyansties when the bureaucrats needed a fast and efficient script to handle state matters. The marked difference between this script and the Xiaozhuan is that Li Shu characters have less strokes and a more flowing style, therefore easily adaptable to brushes and pens. Lishu is still occassionally used in the modern age.

-Kaishu (楷書), or Standard Script, is essentially the traditional script used today (except in the People's Republic of China). It is very similar to Lishu, but slightly more cursive and contains serif-like (hook or anchor-like) elements at the corners and end of strokes. Kaishu appeared toward the end of the Han dynasty (220 CE).

-Xingshu (行書), or Running Script, can be considered a cursive version of Kaishu. Often several strokes are merged into one, especially sequential dots or two strokes perpendicular to each other. It also appeared shortly after the Han dynasty.

-Caoshu (草書), or Grass Script, is the most cursive Chinese script. It appeared during the Qin dynasty. The shape of its characters often do not resemble the corresponding Lishu or Kaishu character, in that some strokes are merged into one and others are simply left out.

  Basically, the word we are writing nowadays were mainly transformed from Lishu and Kaishu due to the fact that they have less strokes and a more flowing style, therefore easily adaptable to brushes and pens

A simple introduce of the history of Chinese Characters

Quick Facts

Type Logographic

Genealogy Sinitic

Location East Asia > China

Time 1500 BCE to Present

Direction Top to Bottom

  The Chinese writing system is an unique phenomenon in the modern world of alphabet scripts. Instead of a few dozen letters, it has developed thousands of complex signs or "characters" that represent morphemes and words. Even related writing systems such as Japanese and Korean, while sharing many of the same characters, can fully function as purely phonetic scripts. And while it is not the only living logographic writing system in the modern world, it is the only one serving as the primary writing system for hundreds of millions of people. The first recognisable form of Chinese writing dates from 3,500 years ago, but many argue that its origins lie much deeper in the past. Regardless of its actual age, Chinese has evolved substantially over time yet has retained its ancient core, making it one of the longest continuously used writing system in the world. 

Origin

  The common consensus is that writing in China evolved from earlier non-linguistic symbolic systems. During the Late Neolithic period, at the latter half of the 3rd millenum BCE, many symbols or "pictograms" started to be incised on pottery and jades. These symbols are thought to be family or clan emblems that identify the ownership or provenance of the pottery or jades.

  

The Earliest Chinese Writing

  Whatever the obscure initial phase of written Chinese was, its appearance during the Shang dynasty already exhibited sign of a very complex system. The earliest form of Chinese writing is called the oracle bone script, used from 1500 to 1000 BCE. This script was etched onto turtle shells and animals bones, which were then heated until cracks would appear. By interpretating the pattern of the cracks, Shang court officials would make divinations of future events, hence giving the name "oracle bones" to these animal bones. An example of an oracle bone is illustrated in the following example.

History and introduce of Oracle Bone-Script

  Before Chinese Character dive into the vast world of core calligraphy styles in a strict sense, let me introduce you to the grandfather of all scripts: oracle bone and tortoise shell script (亀甲獣骨文字, kikkou juukotsu moji). 

  In short, oracle bone inscriptions are called koukotsubun (甲骨文) in Japanese, which translates to “text (文, bun) on shells (甲, kou) and bones (骨, kotsu)”. In Chinese it is also known as qi wen, i.e “engraved text” (刻, to engrave, 文, text), although there were bones found with characters written with a brush, and not carved afterwards.

  Koukotsubun was discovered by accident in 1899 by Wang Yirong (王懿榮), an official from Beijing, who fell ill. A doctor prescribed him a medicine of which one of the ingredients was “dragon bone” (龍骨in Chinese: long gu). The piece of bone he had purchased from a traditional pharmacy was covered in ancient carvings resembling Chinese characters. Being a man of science it intrigued him and eventually led to a great discovery in a small village just outside Anyang (安陽), Henan Province (河南省).

Initial ideas of my essay

I did a basic plan for my essay structure, I divided into two parts.

First part:

-Talk about what is Chinese character

-How it is different with English characters, for example, every Chinese character has their own meaning, doesn't like English, "A" doesn't has any meaning.

-Handwriting steps

-Write from top to bottom?

-History about Chinese characters, how it transformed to nowaday's characters

Second part:

-Talk about traditional connection such as most branding in HK are using English, while small branding still using Traditional Chinese.