“Lee's Kitchen” Sign

Dating all the way back to the mid-19th century, designers have long sought to emulate the character of Asian type in a roman typeface. These typographers mostly pulled inspiration from calligraphic brushstrokes in Asian writing. To achieve a similar effect in a roman alphabet, they cut the letters up into short strokes with sharp, high contrast lines with an organic bend. Today, this type style has become so ingrained in the collective western cultural consciousness that it can serve as visual shorthand to quickly convey information about businesses that use it. In the sign for Lee's Kitchen, for example, if the second line was removed, most western consumers would likely still be able to gather that Lee's Kitchen is an Asian restaurant from the typography alone.  This makes the typeface a very powerful communication tool.

However, it is important to note that these western typefaces mimicking eastern calligraphy “fail to refer correctly to the ductus, or order and direction of strokes, of the different traditions." This history of appropriating broadly Asian styles into something distinctly western feels intrinsically tied to how most "Asian food" in the America is inspired by Asian flavors but are not actually local dishes. In both cases, Asian culture has been appropriated in a very surface-level way without much care for the history or reasoning of the source material. In their own way, these distinctly western artifacts have grown into their own identities and become somewhat emblematic of the Asian American diaspora, but it important to note their disparities in accurately translating their source materials in the name of making it more easily palatable for western audiences. As designers, it is important for us to consider not only where we draw inspiration from, but also how, so that we can do so in a way that honors the core of the source material rather than simply drawing stereotypes from it's surface.