Creative Characters S6 E15: Raven Mo on chop suey fonts, multilingual type, and the myth of authenticity.
Raven Mo.
On Creative Characters, we meet creative people working at the intersection of type and everyday life. You can listen below, or on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and wherever quality podcasts are available.
This week, host Dan Rhatigan talks with NYC-based identity designer and type researcher Raven Mo. Raven studies cultural essentialism in typography and dives into her research on chop suey fonts—a Latin style of letterform that is meant to visually signal “Chineseness”—and why they are problematic.
Raven and Dan also discuss multilingual typography, the importance of local expertise, and why translation alone doesn’t make a design resonate.
Check out Raven’s work at ravenmo.info or follow her on Instagram @ravenmodesign.