background
Located in China Agricultural University, 1905 café was named by the year when the university was established. In 1905, The imperialist examinations system was abolished and western education was instilled, together with the establishment of several modern universities. People see that year as the turning point of new China because Chinese began to know about the outside world. My inspiration came from the history of that year. I recomposed the Chinese characters which have the similar shape of the four Arabic numerals -- 1905. I created the system by applying Chinese strokes in all western contents.
APPROACHING
Selecting a typeface was the first thing I need to do. I typed two typical Chinese typefaces in computer and compared them. Both the shape and the characteristics should be considered.
Song is the serif font in Chinese which is considered the original Chinese typeface. There are curves in the strokes. This typeface has an extreme contrast between horizontal and vertical strokes.
Stemming from old Chinese calligraphy, Kai looks like handwriting font in English. There are fewer rules in the structure. As you can see, the thickness also varied even in one stroke.
Song has more Chinese characteristics.
Kai expresses more freedom and is more similar to the numbers.
Comparing with Song, I chose Kai because it provides more freedom for the VI that I will work on next.
Slogan
As the slogan, wake up shows the function of coffee. Furthermore, it reminds the students not to waste their time. I designed the letters in the same way of what I did on my logo – composing the letters by CKJ strokes.
