Designing for the Chinese Market: A Practical Guide to Simplified Chinese Typography
- morisawausa
- Sep 26
- 7 min read
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
6. Conclusion
1. Introduction
When designing with a global perspective, typography is more than a visual choice—it is a form of cultural literacy.
Chinese writing has two systems: Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. These are not just alternate character shapes; they represent distinct visual and cultural conventions.
This article introduces the fundamentals of Simplified Chinese typesetting with a focus on visual communication and brand consistency. Small details—such as spacing, punctuation, and the way Latin text is combined with Chinese characters—may be easy to overlook, but they play a decisive role in maintaining the quality and credibility of creative work.
For creative professionals—whether reviewing a local campaign, developing a multilingual brand system, or working to avoid unintentional cultural missteps—understanding these basics will lead to sharper questions, more precise feedback, and stronger collaboration with cross-cultural teams.
2. The Origins of Simplified Chinese
Before discussing typesetting, let’s look at the characters used to write Chinese, known as Hanzi. Today there are two systems: Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.
“Simplified Chinese” refers to characters that were historically used as informal, simplified alternatives to more complex Traditional Chinese forms.
With the writing reforms of the People’s Republic of China, the government promoted simplification as the official standard. In 1955, the Scheme for the Simplification of Chinese Characters was introduced, followed by the 1964 publication of the Complete List of Simplified Characters by the Chinese Character Reform Committee.
These officially recognized forms, now referred to as “Simplified Characters,” are taught in schools across Mainland China and are widely used in newspapers, books, and other publications.
Simplification methods include adapting handwritten cursive forms, replacing components with fewer strokes, or omitting certain radicals and structural parts altogether.
We plan to introduce Traditional Chinese—the foundation from which Simplified Chinese developed—in a separate article.
3. Where Simplified Chinese is Used
Simplified Chinese is used in Mainland China, Singapore, and Malaysia.
China is a vast and multiethnic country, so even within what is broadly called “Chinese,” there are many regional and cultural differences. The official language is known as Putonghua, used in broadcasting and education nationwide.
Beyond this standard, however, there are numerous regional languages and dialects—for example, Cantonese in Guangdong Province or Shanghainese in Shanghai. These differ not only in pronunciation and vocabulary but sometimes in grammar and word order, making mutual understanding difficult.
At the same time, Traditional Chinese is still used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao. In addition, many overseas Chinese communities that emigrated before the introduction of Simplified Chinese continue to use Traditional characters, meaning not everyone can read Simplified Chinese.
Even within the broader Chinese-speaking world, it is common for publications, films, or television dramas to be released with both Simplified and Traditional subtitles depending on the market. Paying attention to this distinction allows for more precise and culturally appropriate communication.
4. Typography Basics for Simplified Chinese
・How Typesetting Works
In Chinese typesetting, each character is treated as if it fits inside a square body, and the layout proceeds by moving these units forward in sequence.
This principle is the same for both Simplified and Traditional Chinese.
Since each character is treated as a unit, aligning text is straightforward, and most commonly a fully justified layout (justification) is used. On the web, however, left alignment is also widely seen.
Between characters, there is generally no additional spacing (solid setting).
Interestingly, this square-body approach is shared by Japanese typesetting as well. But in Korean, often grouped with Chinese and Japanese, the logic is quite different—a topic we plan to cover separately in the future.
・Layout Direction
In modern Simplified Chinese, the most common layout is horizontal, the same as English and other Western languages. Text runs from left to right.
Vertical typesetting is still used occasionally, often as a design accent or in headlines.
・Line Spacing & Line Length
Chinese characters are generally larger and more complex than Latin letters (though there are exceptions, such as “一”). If you apply the same line spacing settings used for English directly to Chinese text, the lines will become too tight, making it difficult to read.
For this reason, line spacing of 50%-100% of the character size (leading at 150%-200%) is recommended. The most appropriate setting depends on the purpose of the text, its length, and how it interacts with other design elements. In general, shorter lines can accommodate tighter spacing, while longer lines require more generous spacing.
As for line length, aiming for about 15-40 characters per line usually helps maintain readability. Of course, there is no single “correct” number, but the principle is the same as in English typography: if the lines are too short or too long, the text becomes harder to read.
・Punctuation Differences
In Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, the placement of commas and periods differs.
If these differences are ignored, even non-specialist readers may sense that “something feels off.” Such inconsistencies can reduce customer trust, or create unnecessary barriers when trying to engage new audiences—ultimately harming both creative work and brand perception.
In Simplified Chinese, commas and periods are positioned at the bottom-left corner of the character body. Their placement is almost identical to commas and periods in English.
Visually, the comma looks nearly the same as the Latin versions, but in Simplified Chinese a full-width comma is used, with space left after it.
In contrast, in Traditional Chinese, commas and periods are positioned in the center of the character body. We will cover the details of Traditional Chinese typesetting in a future article.
・Line Break Rules
In Chinese typesetting, characters are arranged one by one in sequence. At first glance, this seems to eliminate the need for processes like hyphenation in English, making the layout appear more flexible.
In reality, however, there are still “hard-to-read" patterns that must be avoided. To address these, a set of detailed line break rules exists.
Here, we will introduce two of the most basic: forbidden line-start characters and forbidden line-end characters. Even if you cannot do a full native-language check, it is recommended to at least confirm these two rules.
Forbidden at the beginning of a line: Characters such as commas, periods, closing quotation marks, and closing brackets. Among these, commas and periods are especially common, so great care should be taken to avoid placing them at line start.
If line break rules are automatically applied in the design environment, the issues mentioned above rarely arise. However, when working in environments where these rules are not active, it’s important to keep such basics in mind.
Forbidden at the end of a line: Characters that should not appear at line-end include opening brackets and opening quotation marks.
Incidentally, there are no restrictions on having kanji appear at line-end. However, the rules against windows and orphans (single characters left isolated at the top or bottom of a column) are also part of Chinese typesetting.
・Mixed-Script Typesetting
Chinese writing is generally expressed entirely in Chinese characters. As a result, names of people or countries, which in their original form would be written in Latin letters, are instead converted into Chinese characters.
For example, “Leonardo da Vinci” is expressed as「列奥纳多·达·芬奇」.
In recent years, however, it has become increasingly common not to convert English or other foreign words into Chinese characters, but to retain their original spelling.
For instance, abbreviations like “DTP,” proper nouns, titles of literary works, authors’ names, and units indicating numbers or years are often left in their original Latin-alphabet form.
Arabic numerals (e.g., 1234) are also used for year designations, item numbers, chemical formulas, and numerical expressions.
When combining Chinese characters with Latin letters or Arabic numerals, it is preferable to insert a quarter-width space to ensure proper readability and visual balance.
In Chinese typesetting, justified alignment is generally the standard. However, when an English word falls at the end of a line, adjustments are made either by applying tracking or by inserting a quarter to half-width space between the Latin letters and the Chinese characters.
5. Character Sets and Standards
At present, two character sets for Simplified Chinese are widely used: GB 2312-80 and GB 18030-2022. (Strictly speaking, these are character encoding standards, but for simplicity here we will refer to them as “character sets.”)
GB 2312-80 (commonly known as GB 2312) was established in 1980 and contains 7,445 encoded characters. In addition to Chinese characters, it includes Arabic numerals, Roman letters, Greek letters, phonetic symbols with tone marks, and various punctuation marks.
GB 18030-2022, enacted in 2022, is a large-scale character set encompassing 89,106 characters. There are three implementation levels, from level 1 to 3. For general software, it is required to meet implementation level 2, which includes 28,771 characters.
We offer a Simplified Chinese font that is compliant with implementation level 2.
As a national standard, GB 18030 compliance is mandatory for IT products and services that are exported to, sold in, or otherwise support the Chinese market. Fonts used for Simplified Chinese (embedded or bundled) must therefore adhere to this standard.
Depending on the brand or application, the level of compliance with this character set may directly affect market expansion, making it essential to monitor compatibility carefully.
6. Conclusion
For global brand development, understanding the typesetting rules of each language is not just a matter of translation. It also involves visual translation: adapting design to fit the culture and expectations of readers.
Even small inconsistencies in typesetting may be perceived as “something feels off,” even by non-specialists. Such issues can damage the trust placed in a brand.
The purpose of this article is not to provide exhaustive explanations, but to share minimum essential knowledge that should be kept in mind. It is not a substitute for the experience of a native designer, but it can serve as a foundation to help guide sound decisions in the right direction.
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