Kaku
A Japanese Hiragana typeface to aid in learning Hiragana.
We live in a world that is more interconnected than at any time in the past. Global communication is at an all time high and while English is the language of the internet it is only the first language of seven percent of the world.
Learning a langauge is an important skill to have. Kaku alleviates some of the difficulty that comes with learning Japanese specifically. Kaku has several features that allow Hiragana to appear more approachable and easier to learn. The name has two meanings in Japanese, it is the word for stroke in reference to writing as well as the verb to write.
Firstly, Kaku has simpler forms than most Japanese typefaces. Kaku has done away with the flourishes, ‘serifs’, uncommon styles of characters and stroke contrast in order to create a typeface that is less intimidating and clearer. However, it has maintained the essence of each character so that it is still recognisable to learners and natives alike.
Another feature of Kaku is the gradient-tipped strokes. An important aspect of Hiragana is learning the stroke order, it is easiest to recognise the characters when you know the order and construction of their strokes. This is what the gradient-tips achieve, they show the direction of the stroke so that readers may reference the stroke direction to better recognise the character. It also serves as a prompt for writing the character.
Kaku’s characters are proportional, meaning they retain the standard proportions for each character instead of filling the box they are designed within. This allows Kaku to be more readable as it is easier to distinguish between characters.
To demonstrate how Kaku can be used I created a couple of resources that further aid in learning the characters.
Firstly, I created a series of flip books that allow the user to see how each character is constructed stroke by stroke in the correct order. The use of transparency film allows the characters to build up to the final form. As well as showing the stroke order, these flip books also have further explanation of some important parts of the Hiragana script, example words for each character and their Rо̄maji transliteration.
The second resource I created as an example of how Kaku could be used are the following animations. I have animated the characters to show exactly how you write each character so that you may learn how to write.
