AIZI
AIZI / AI字 / 爱字
Artificial Intelligence and Chinese Type Design
AIZI
ecalmatd
10%
Master, Type Design, ECAL, Lausanne
Computer Vision Laboratory, EPFL, Lausanne
AIZI / AI字 / 爱字
Artificial Intelligence and Chinese Type Design
2020
Renens, Ecublens, Hangzhou, Trento, The Hague, the Web, the World
Research project done in collaboration between ECAL and EPFL. AIZI started as the Diploma project of Shuhui Shi at ECAL Master Type Design, 2019.
Thanks to the help of the Réseau de Compétence Design et Arts Visuels, a team of type designers and engineers was set up to develop it further.
ECAL, EPFL, Matthieu Cortat, Lausanne; Kai Bernau, The Hague (NL); Mathieu Salzmann, Lausanne; Shuhui Shi, Lausanne/Hangzhou (CN); Wei Wang, Lausanne/Trento (IT)
Stripes of generated Hanzi and a database with 93876 entries and the ongoing development of an algorithm to generate Hanzi (Chinese characters) using artificial intelligence.
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Website designed by Frederik Mahler-Andersen, Lausanne
The most basic Latin fonts consist of 26 letters. The minimum required for Chinese is 6763 glyphs. Thousands more – up to 106230 – are needed for any functional text font. These gigantic numbers make a crucial difference when it comes to type design: creating a Chinese typeface could easily take more than a year.
This situation tends to keep creativity within the boundaries of safe commercial bets. Stylistic innovation and visual avant-garde are stifled by the size of the task. A joint research project of ECAL Master Type Design and the EPFL Computer Vision Laboratory, AIZI aims to create a rapid prototyping tool for design studios, using machine learning to generate characters. It follows good models and a structure provided by the second part of the project: a database that analyses the composition of 93876 characters. This database is freely accessible online. It is the first step in the development of a digital tool offering easier access to Chinese type design.
