Parsons School of Design
BFA Communication Design
Thesis 2017

Parsons School of Design
BFA Communication Design
Thesis 2017

Grid-based Asian Languages
Shui Shan

Because China borders many countries, and is composed of many ethnicities, there are many written languages used in China. When traced back to their origins, many languages are connected in ways including their formations, developments and extinctions. Linguists categorize languages into families based on their interconnections. However, the structures of characters may be drastically different even if the languages are from the same family. The fact that these written languages, when being designed, are difficult to achieve visual consistency has become an obstacle as the importance of people to communicate globally increases today. I studied 9 different writing systems from 6 different language families used in the People’s Republic of China including: Chinese, Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian, Phags-pa, Hangul, Katakana, Russian, and Devanagari.

Based on my research, I applied the same grid systems and rules to design this project called Grid-based Asian Languages, and used a video form to introduce the final products. The video contains background knowledge, pronunciation and demonstration of character structures for all 9 languages. The purpose of this project is to study the structure and origins of letter forms from different languages, to test the flexibility of the grid and more importantly to create a more cohesive visual system of different languages.

Andy Agus

Ameer Akbar

Sherifa El Alfi

Orhan S Awatramani

Evan Badr

Mrinal Bhatia

Yaël Bienenstock

Olivia Brodtman

Adomas Bruzga

Holly Burt

Kiana Caesar

Elizabeth Capreol

Christian Caraballo

Alyson Cardenas

Gabriela Carnabuci

Marjorie Chamberlain

Vanna Chan

Sachi Chandiramani

Leslie Chavez

Katherine Cheng

Emily Cho

Soomin Choi

Hyeree Choi

Talia Cotton

Dorothy Cruz

Katie DeAngelis

Nicole Jane Debler

Dominique DeVito

Megan Dias

Theresa Duemler

Juan Francisco Morales Egas

Michelle Eguia

Audrey Farnsworth

Peter Fowler

Myesha Evon Gardner

Alijah Gilbert

John Hammond

Jin Ju Han

Aimee Hedman

Perla Herrera

Lauren Horsman

Zhiyan Huang

Ji Hea Jang

Urvita Jhaveri

Myles Jones

Cheryl Kao

Phoebe Kennedy

Alice Yeji Kim

Jung Yeon Kim

Thomas Sang Gul Kim

Chewon Kim

Sanggyun Kim

Hansung Kim

Likando Kumoyo

Jang Kyungjun

Josh LaCalamito

Yunjoo Lee

Kyung Sun Lee

SooJi Lee

Meijun Li

Alice Lim

Junya Lin

Yuchen Liu

Kimberly Lombardi

Natalia Malik

Roisin McNulty

Simen L. Meyer

Nikoletta Mitsopoulou

Chloë Murray

Cyrus Nathaniel

David Dahao Ni

Mariana Del Nogal

Sofia Olarra

Kamila Ortiz

Ji Hyun Park

Sara Pena

Melissa S. Peralta

Camille Petricola

Sander Phoenix

Urvi Raghbeer

Andrew Ramirez

Brianna Saba

Stephen Salomon

Julianna Amelia Santolucito

Raida Saveree Sarwar

Ritika Shah

Shui Shan

Jisoo Sim

Lauren Stein

Pei Yu Sun

Shivalika Tandon

Nia Thomas

Laura Tien

Karina Tristandy

Paula Volchok

Djiun Wang

Kyra Wang

Taylor Wasikonis

Junlu Xie

Marie Yamamoto

Jasmine Zhang