Typophile

Font pairings for a Chinese restaurant

David Le0 votes

Hi everyone,

I've taken on a menu design project for a semi-formal Chinese restaurant and am in need of some suggestions.

I'm trying to stray away from obvious Asian-stereotypical fonts, but rather something classic and clean with a slight hint of Asian influence.

Any help would be appreciated. Right now I am pairing Century Gothic with Palatino italic and while they are quite nice together, they're giving a much more western (perhaps an Italian restaurant) vibe.

Perhaps the Hakkasan menu could provide some inspiration?

There are some very clean and elegant brush fonts. Here is one: Hideko.

One factor you might consider is that East Asian font designers usually include a Latin subset in Chinese and Japanese fonts using a light version of common Latin fonts.
If you have Windows, check the installed East Asian fonts for some examples.
Don

Maybe not quite what you're asking, but I've achieved some (IMO) very nice results in using Adobe Jenson Pro on the same page as traditional-style kanji/hanzi characters.

I second altsan's recommendation, any well designed humanist face where the trace of the pen is palpable and intrinsic.

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