Questions on future CJK fonts

[NightFurySL2001]

I would like to ask about the status of CJK fonts in the future.

1. What glyphs and encoding standards will the fonts follow? For example, Tongyong Guifan Hanzibiao/Inherited Glyphs/Standard Form of National Characters/JIS 20014 for glyphs standard and GB18030/Big5/JIS X 0208 for encoding standard .
2. Will IBM Plex adds both sans serif (or Gothic, 黑体) and serif (or Ming/Song, 明／宋体) font in the future?
3. Will IBM Plex KR add hanja into the fonts as per KS X 1001 and KS X 1002?
4. Will IBM Plex CJK be combined into one font like Source Han Sans/Source Han Serif? There will be a few constrains if the same technology is to be used (i.e. 65535 glyph limit).
5. What font foundries/individuals will be involved for the production of CJK fonts?
6. Will the CJK font files be released with overlapping or no overlapping? It seems that IBM Plex KR is released with overlapping.

Thanks in advance.

[mjabbink]

@NightFurySL2001

1. Plex CJK fonts follow each Adobe character collection. Plex Japanese follows Adobe Japan 1-3, Plex Traditional Chinese follow Adobe CNS 1-7 that supports CNS 11643 Planes 1 and2, Big5, HKGCCS, and HKSCS. Plex Simplified Chinese is yet to develop but will start from Adobe GB1-0 that supports GB2312-80 and GB1988-89. And later, a wider range of glyphs can be updated as an additional supplement to guarantee usability.

2. For the first release of CJK we will only have low contrast versions.

3. No plans for KR hanja yet. The development of JP, TC, and SC basic standards are the priority through 2022, and the development of the additional supplement depends on its necessity (Plex Sans JP will hopefully be released in April 2021).

4. As you stated, there are technical constraints to combine CJK fonts, so we don’t have plans for an integrated font for now. We are focusing to optimize the font for each script.

5. We are working with Sandoll on design and production of IBM Plex CJK with collaboration with designers from JP, TC, and SC-using area.

6. The source file will be released with overlapping.

[mjabbink]

Closing for now.

[NightFurySL2001]

@mjabbink Thank you for your reply.

1. What would be the orthography standard (字形标准) for the TC version? I think that the SC orthography would be following the Tongyong Guifan Hanzibiao while the JP orthography will have both kyujitai and shinjitai. What will the TC orthography be following?

2. I would actually say that support for GB/T 2312-1980 and GB/T 1988-1998 is deemed not enough for modern daily use of SC.
   I propose that SC version should use the range of GB/T 2312-1980 in conjunction of either Xiandai Hanyu Tongyong Zibiao (现代汉语通用字表) (7000 characters) and/or Tongyong Guifan Hanzibiao (2013 version, 通用规范汉字表) (8105 characters). These 2 standards are developed later than GB/T 2312-1980 (which obviously is from 1980) and should contain enough characters for modern daily usage, with the Tongyong Guifan Hanzibiao even providing support to (almost) all the words in Periodic Table (except element 116, 117, 118 which was determined last year).
   On the other hand, GB/T 1988-1998 is not submitted to Unicode AFAIK and it may contain characters that are not in the current Unicode encoding even in the latest CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G. It is definitely not suitable to be used as a modern character set standard.

3. Will additional symbols be supported such as pinyin and bopomofo? I would really hope that the bopomofo has a higher quality than what Source Han Sans to offer in its earlier version…

[NightFurySL2001]

@mjabbink I saw the issue of #346 recently and I'd like to voice support for them for the use of traditional orthography in IBM Plex CJK TC version. Please consider using the traditional orthography for the following reasons:

1. Traditional orthography is more formal and fits the overall design of IBM Plex better. This is due to the traditional orthography has a long history and refinement of human process on the printed characters and the refinement of printed type to digital world what the IBM Plex font is doing. The traditional orthography is better suited to carry the timeless-ness of IBM Plex and representing the IBM corporation as a formal and timeless business. Also, IBM systems deployed in the Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau uses traditional orthography.
2. Using traditional orthography can cut down the time needed by TC font by ~25% as most glyphs of traditional ortography can be found in JP kanji of font too. Also, some of the design can be ported from SC more easily compared to the use of Standard Form of National Characters and less time will be required to design new glyphs from the ground up.
3. Using traditional orthography can also save resources to make localized versions of CJK TC fonts for different areas (eg. China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau). Traditional orthography is widely recognised as the de facto style alongside educational orthography in respective areas. Using traditional orthography for Traditional Chinese version of IBM Plex can prevent wastage of time and cost on localizing for each educational standard, instead just one traditional orthography font can be used in marketing in all Traditional Chinese areas, reaching the most widespread audience/market with minimal cost.

[NightFurySL2001]

Also, HKGCCS and HKSCS have a larger character set but it may not contain all glyphs needed by daily Hong Kong uses while containing some that are not used daily. A suggested set could be HKGCCS + Suppchara that is more organized and has fewer glyphs than HKSCS.

[johnnyshields]

@mjabbink may we ask:

• a comment on the choice of orthography for TC (also asked in Orthography used for Plex Sans TC #346)
• an update on the latest ETA for JP, TC, and SC releases

[mjabbink]

JP to be released in April 2021. TC Nd SC are delayed and no time estimates at the moment.

[roytam1]

JP to be released in April 2021.

for recording/filing, JP is released yesterday (i.e. 2021-07-24). so it is ~3 more months of delay.

[sandoll-inc]

IBM PLEX TC is collaborating with designers from Taiwan, and Sandoll considers PLEX in respect of local designers and users.

Therefore, TC has been made based on printing type styles after 70's rather than the official orthographies of modern governments. DF Hei and Lanting Hei belong to this style.

Regarding Github issue #346, I had just talked to my colleague and I'd like to stick to the words that Plex TC design is based on finding a balance between traditional orthography and some good handwritten touches. Because that is what Plex is about. In the context of #346 discussion, our approach could be said "amalgam"