Wow! now this is an exciting development! (Thanks to Korean Vitamin for the link.)
As a web developer myself, I’ve often been fascinated by the sheer amount of Google Fonts that are freely available to import and use on websites all over the world (over 44,000 items!). BUT, as a web developer living in Korea, I’ve also wondered just how long it might be before something as cool as Google Fonts took hold HERE and we were able to beautify our sites with better Hangul fonts.
Well, fortunately, the wait is (unofficially) over as Google now provides 10 NEW Hangul Fonts in its Early Access Fonts area.
There are numerous fonts included in Early Access including Hebrew, Thai, Lao, Arabic, Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Myanmar, Armenian, Cherokee, Chinese, and Japanese among others (for a full list of the new font languages, see below). But the exciting ones are the 10 new Hangul fonts!
You can take a look at what each of these Korean fonts looks like IN THE BROWSER below (the font descriptions are copied from Google’s Early Access page):
1. Hanna
키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다.
Woowa Brothers, a company dedicated to contributing to the world’s graceful progress by utilizing information technology, has created the ‘Hanna’ font for everyone to use. Hanna reflects Woowa Brothers’ kitsch and retro identity; it is reminiscent of our childhood memories of trying to draw something really nice, yet our drawing turns out to be a little rough and half-baked. Hanna is just like that kid’s drawing, and will bring you back to the time when you were little. Enjoy and share!
2. Jeju Gothic
키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다.
Jeju Gothic is simple and modern design. It feels young and fresh like Jeju Island’s purity.
3. Jeju Hallasan
키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다.
Jeju Hallasan was designed to represent the beauty of Jeju Island, the UNESCO world natural heritage site. It shows Jeju’s special geographic characteristics, basaltic rocks and volcanic islands.
4. Jeju Myeongjo (serif)
키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다.
Jeju Myungjo was designed to have a modern look and improved legibility through simplified shapes and a bigger optical size. It is a polished serif type, to represent Jeju Island’s bright future.
5. KoPub Batang (serif)
키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다.
KoPub Batang is a serif unicode font designed by Fontrix, with sponsorship from Korea’s government (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism) and published by the Korea Publishers Society. It supports 11,172 Hangul glyphs, 94 English glyphs, 986 KS symbols and 4,888 Chinese glyphs. It is intended for reading at text sizes, and it has good legibility: It has passed many legibility tests and has been positively reviewed by publication professionals. Its serifs are restrained and smooth, and it has excellent kerning and other refinements.
The Nanum fonts below (Korean : 나눔글꼴) are unicode fonts designed especially for the Korean-language script, designed by Sandoll Communications (Korean : 산돌 커뮤니케이션) and Fontrix (Korean : 폰트릭스). The publisher is Naver.
6. Nanum Brush Script
키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다.
Nanum Brush Script is a contemporary brush script with a warm touch and is expertly hinted for screen use.
7. Nanum Gothic
키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다.
Nanum Gothic is a contemporary sans-serif with a warm touch and is expertly hinted for screen use.
8. Nanum Gothic Coding
키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다.
Nanum Gothic Coding is a contemporary monospaced sans-serif with a warm touch and is expertly hinted for screen use.
9. Nanum Myeongjo
키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다.
Nanum Gothic is a contemporary sans-serif with a warm touch and is expertly hinted for screen use.
10. Nanum Pen Script
키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다.
Nanum Pen Script is a contemporary pen script with a warm touch and is expertly hinted for screen use.
What’s up with the “Kiss”?
If you notice the phrase I’ve used above in all the examples, it is a Korean pangram. What is a pangram? The following is a quote from a resurrected Wikipedia page (apparently it was deleted by Wikipedians who thought, “It is mostly comprised of nonsense phrases…”):
Pangrams are words or sentences containing every letter of the alphabet at least once; the best known English example being “A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
The Korean pangram used above is:
키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다.
The essential condition for a kiss is that lips meet and there is no special technique required.
So, what makes this a Korean pangram?
In current usage, Hangul has 14 simple consonant letters, 6 simple vowel letters, and 4 iotized vowel letters; there are also 5 double consonant letters, 11 consonant clusters, and 11 diphthongs, made from combinations of the simple consonants or simple vowels. Of these, the above phrase contains all the simple consonant letters, simple vowel letters, and iotized vowel letters, along with 1 double consonant letter (ㄲ “gg”), 1 consonant cluster (ㄶ “nh”), and one diphthong (ㅢ “ui”).
But besides that, I’m filled with such JOY at finding Korean webfonts that WORK like this, a “kiss” is almost an appropriate gesture in response.
Which one is your favorite Korean font?
Let us know in the Comments below. I personally think “Jeju Hallasan” is a unique font that looks a bit like volcanic rocks. Here’s another look at all the fonts again:
Hanna: 키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Jeju Gothic: 키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Jeju Hallasan: 키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Jeju Myeongjo: 키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
KoPub Batang: 키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Nanum Brush Script: 키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Nanum Gothic: 키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Nanum Gothic Coding: 키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Nanum Myeongjo: 키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Nanum Pen Script: 키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Click this link to view the fonts as an image if your browser has trouble rendering them for some reason.
Click this link to go to Google’s Early Access Fonts where you can also DOWNLOAD the fonts to use on your computer.
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