Yue Chen is a multilingual type designer and researcher, currently a PhD candidate in Typeface Design at the University of Reading, UK. Her doctoral research focuses on the unification and digital font implementation of the Yi script, a writing system of a Chinese ethnic minority. Yue is also the translator and published author of Design, Typography etc.(Chinese edition).

Her work has received multiple international design awards, including recognition from the New York TDC Awards, Morisawa Typeface Design Awards, Hiiibrand Awards, and inclusion in the Tokyo TDC Yearbook. She teaches the course Cross-Cultural Type Design and Application at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and participates in several projects funded by China’s National Arts Fund, as well as university initiatives in type and visual design.

Yue has also presented at academic events hosted by institutions such as the University of Reading, Tsinghua University, the China International Conference of Chinese Characters, the Chinese Embassy in the UK, and the Academic Seminar of the Professional Committee on Chinese Character Form Information.

M. S.: How has your background and upbringing influenced who you are today and your path to type design? Can you talk about your family, where you grew up, and how your heritage shaped your perspective?

Yue Chen: I was born in a small mountainous county in Chongqing, Southwest China, and am of the Tujia minority. Raised by my grandfather, a retired language teacher and self-taught artist, I often traveled with him to minority villages, exploring stones and plants and witnessing the gradual fading of many cultures, including our own. My grandfather always brought me to the county’s New Year exhibition, where he displayed his stones and bonsai and entrusted me with the important task of writing the labels. Proud of this role, I began to learn calligraphy—perhaps my earliest link to type design. Though my family opposed an art career, he always supported me until his sudden passing as I pursued my dream. In his diary, I found the words: “I believe Chen Yue will become a great person.” That sentence became my anchor.

In grief, type design became the only thing that calmed me. I realized it was more than shaping letters, it was a dialogue with culture and memory. After my master’s degree, I joined Professor Liu Zhao’s studio and came to see type design’s social value: it can give minority scripts new life. Later, I entered the University of Reading, focusing on type design for the Yi script, used by the largest minority in Southwest China. Facing the challenges of the digital era, I aim to combine professional design methods with a cross-cultural perspective to study the Yi character system, develop practical and high-quality digital typefaces, and explore innovative applications, using both academic and creative power to protect cultural diversity and the living heritage of ethnic cultures.

M. S.: We were impressed by your innovative approach to Chinese type design, particularly with the typefaces Yourong Type and Easy-going, which you co-designed with Zhang Congyu. What inspired these designs?

Yue Chen: For me, type design is about balancing respect for tradition with the needs of contemporary visual culture. Easy-going, co-designed with Zhang Congyu, blends the elegance of Clerical Script (Lishu) with the clarity of modern sans serif, covering three writing systems—Hanzi, Yi, and Latin. Inspired by the Eastern Han dynasty’s Cao Quan Stele, its strokes preserve Lishu’s classic features but are simplified and refined for modern aesthetics, creating a smooth, contemporary feel. Even stroke weight and a clear sans serif structure provide stability without losing fluidity. This fusion roots the typeface in Chinese tradition while allowing it to speak fluently in today’s visual language.

Yourong is an ultra-bold display typeface that pushes creative exploration to the extreme, with richly varied structures. Named after the saying “The sea accepts all rivers,” it symbolizes how Chinese character forms can embrace infinite variation. The character frame acts like a vessel, with strokes flowing like water to form unique shapes. Free from rigid construction rules, it allows flexibility while maintaining legibility, achieving harmony within limited space. I believe design cannot be “rootless water”—only by respecting history can it truly have life. These works reflect my view that type design is not just form-making, but a cultural dialogue between past and present, openness and adaptability.

M. S.: In projects you participated in, such asShanghai Sky and the Jianzi notation system for Guqin, how can building a strong methodology be as important as the design itself?

Yue Chen: Every step I’ve taken counts. My background was originally in the sciences, and shifting to design gave me a methodical mindset and precision that have proven invaluable in large-scale type projects. Both Shanghai Sky and the Jianzi Notation System for Guqin, created at Liu Zhao Studio, involved many designers. In such teams, type design cannot rely solely on inspiration—clear, executable methodology ensures everyone’s work aligns. Both projects had large character sets and used smart components to maintain consistency.

In Shanghai Sky, a bold display face designed to extend vertically without limit, the challenge was balancing consistent colour with freedom in strokes. Before drawing, we set strict rules for stroke weights and mergers, and standardised stroke shapes with fixed components to allow creative variation while keeping unity.

The Jianzi Notation System for Guqin posed a very different challenge. Traditional guqin notation uses large, intricate characters and small, complex structural groupings. As one of the lead designers for the small characters, I created 30 horizontal guidelines to precisely control the height and placement of groups, ensuring visual consistency and readability.

There’s a Chinese saying: “Without rules, nothing can be formed.” For me, this is more than a proverb—it’s the essence of design methodology. Rules are not constraints but frameworks that sustain creativity, enabling designs to be cohesive, grounded, and enduring. Without them, even the most inspired ideas risk losing clarity and strength over time.

M. S.: With your Aki type family, how did you manage to combine four scripts with such different origins, calligraphic models and design challenges?

Yue Chen: The Aki type family was designed to unite multiple scripts while fully respecting their differences and unique traits. My studies in multiscript design at the University of Reading introduced me to the challenge of “multiscript harmony.” Akicovers four distinct systems—Yi, Chinese, Latin, and Arabic; each with different origins, traditions, and design needs. A central question was whether strict formal unification is necessary. I believe respecting differences matters more than enforcing uniformity, as forced compromises risk stripping a design of vitality and cultural roots. Between consistency and individuality, Aki follows the idea of “each beauty its own beauty, beauty in harmony.” Inspired by the Cuan Baozi Stele, whose strokes are solid yet full of life, Aki carries both the weight of tradition and a contemporary sensibility, adapting this spirit to a multiscript text typeface.

The design process was one of exploration and refinement. I began with Chinese characters, the script I know best, experimenting with styles and details to clarify the overall direction. From there, I distilled stroke features and structural rules, applying them to Yi, Latin, and Arabic. Despite their vast differences, unified principles and detailed standards brought visual balance and coexistence. Aki’s journey taught me that multiscript design is not just about merging forms—it is about allowing each script to retain its identity while contributing to a shared visual language. For me, the Aki type family is not only a cross-cultural, multiscript design exploration but also an embodiment of the possibilities of pluralistic integration. It has deepened my understanding and insight into the challenge of “multiscript harmony.”

M. S.: Can you tell us more about your PhD research on the Yi script?

Yue Chen: The Yi people, the sixth largest ethnic minority in China, primarily live in Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Guangxi. Their language belongs to the Yi branch of the Tibeto-Burman family within the Sino-Tibetan system. Owing to wide geographic distribution, six major dialect regions have formed, with significant differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, creating communication barriers across regions. The Yi possess a unique traditional script—the Yi script—which embodies rich historical, philosophical, religious, and cultural meanings. Unlike many ancient scripts that have become extinct, the Yi script remains vibrant and actively used today. However, its traditional transmission relies mainly on oral teaching and handwritten forms within Bimo families, resulting in strong regional variation in glyph shapes. These include numerous glyph variants, frequent homographs, and the use of substitute characters, causing low compatibility across Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi. As a result, Yi scripts in different regions have developed relatively independent typeface systems, hindering systematic collation, in-depth study, and cultural exchange.

In response to these challenges, my doctoral research focuses on Yi script typeface design and the construction of a standardised digital system. The study systematically undertakes the following core tasks in combination with modern type design theories: the construction of a Yi character set, analysis of glyph structures, and exploration of font styles. The goal is to organise and scientifically integrate the complex and diverse Yi glyph resources across the four provinces, establishing a standardised Yi glyph database and a systematic type design framework. The research also actively incorporates cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence to explore intelligent generation methods for Yi typefaces. This aims to lay a solid technical and cultural foundation for the digital preservation, effective inheritance, and modern application of the Yi script, promoting its broad dissemination and sustainable development in the information age.

M. S.: You mentioned your goal of creating a new methodology for digitizing minority scripts. How do you ensure that the designs are respectful of and sensitive to the cultural and historical context of each script? 

Yue Chen: Respecting cultural and historical contexts is the guiding principle of my research. While scripts of different ethnic groups each possess unique cultural roots and historical backgrounds, typography and digital font design follow universal principles. My aim is to develop a methodology for digitizing minority scripts that fully honors their cultural distinctiveness. Using Yi script as my entry point, I am acutely aware that capturing and conveying these cultural and historical meanings cannot be achieved overnight. It requires sustained testing, iterative refinement, and deep engagement with both form and context. Research must go beyond books and theory; it cannot remain mere “armchair speculation.” Therefore, I immerse myself in Yi communities, collecting inscriptions, manuscripts, and documentary images, while recording oral traditions and ritual scripts of the Bimo families. This firsthand engagement allows me to connect with the historical texture and spiritual essence of the script, avoiding superficial interpretations and enabling a dialogue with the material itself.

I also emphasize interdisciplinary collaboration to balance multiple perspectives. I work closely with Yi linguists, cultural inheritors, and Bimo priests to understand the ethnic values and symbolic meanings embedded in the script. At the same time, I collaborate with encoding and digital experts to ensure the type design respects cultural integrity while meeting technical standards. The path is inevitably long, but I feel privileged to stand at its beginning. I believe that with steadfast reverence for culture, even the smallest spark can ignite a larger impact, allowing minority scripts to flourish in the digital age and ensuring their unique brilliance endures as part of the world’s cultural heritage.