コンピューター文字設計 
富士通株式会社

Typeface Design of Japanese for Computer 
FUJITSU LIMITED

Category: Web/UI Date: 1974

In the early era of the computer age in Japan, the outset of an issue was the development of a font in quick and economic job to cope with complicated system of Japanese characters. The work was done first by breaking those characters used by photo-typesetting industries down into thirty six dots, the system guided by the then Ministry of Trade and Industry, ended up with visually too complicated characters even hardly able to be called a Japanese character.
With that background, we were commissioned to the break down work by a single person without peculiarities in his/her handwriting. Later the project developed into a tremendous work load; not only about eighty thousand kanji, Chinese characters, to cover dictionary edition but kana (phonetic symbol) and many kinds of the other symbols also followed by typeface "Mincho" and "gothic," thirty two dot system from Japanese Industrial Standard.
By having placed the project like hand-copying of sutras of literal Japanese culture by using a computer, effort for two full years, was implemented. However the two-year work earned good reputation, the system had gradually faded out due to rapid technological innovation.