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Gothic typeface (ゴシック体, goshikku-tai) is the second most commonly used style of printed Japanese characters, after Minchō. It is characterised by straight lines of even thickness, akin to sans serif styles in Western typography.
The name "Gothic"
In English, Gothic is an outmoded typographic term for sans-serif. It was so named because the type color of early sans serif typefaces were thought to be similar to that of the blackletter or "gothic" script.
The term "gothic" is now rare in English, having been largely replaced by "sans serif", though it is still found in the names of some typefaces such as "Century Gothic". However, it is still the standard term in Japan for typefaces lacking the equivalent of serifs. These additions, seen in Minchō typefaces, are called uroko (fish scales) in Japanese.
In Korean, godik ("gothic") was used to describe sans-serif-like typefaces until recently. Following a Ministry of Culture-sponsored standardization of typographic terms in 1993, the Korean word dodum ("mount", "stand out") was introduced to replace godik and is now the more popular term. In Chinese, gothic typefaces are called "Hei" (black); this is probably derived from blackletter in the same way.
Types of gothic typeface
Variants on the original gothic typeface include:
- Maru gothic ("round gothic"), which has rounded ends to the lines of the characters. The corresponding English term is “round sans” and in Chinese it is called “Hei Yuan” (lit. “round black*”). Maru gothic is the style of typeface used for Japanese road signs.
Gothic typefaces in computing
In Japanese computing, the use of gothic typefaces is common, with a number of default system fonts being gothic. In contrast, in Chinese computing Minchō typefaces are much more common. Most default Chinese fonts are Minchō.
Japanese gothic typefaces commonly seen in computing include
- MS Gothic (MS ゴシック) — default system font on Microsoft Windows
- Osaka — default system font on Mac OS X
- Hiragino Kaku Gothic (ヒラギノ角ゴ), Hiragino Maru Gothic (ヒラギノ丸ゴ), and Kozuka Gothic (小塚ゴシック) — typeface families provided by new versions of Adobe Illustrator
- GothicBBB-Medium — used by Adobe as one of the two CJK fonts in many examples in its documentation
- Kochi Gothic (東風ゴシック) — a free font that is included with a number of Linux distributions
External links
"Japanese gothic typeface"