Ri Xing Type Foundry
The vibrant digital publication made nearly all of the foundries in Taiwan disappeared after 1990s. It was the most glorious period of the printing industry in 1985, and there were around 50,000 printing plants all over Taiwan but only 5,000 plants left in 1995. In 2000, the biggest type foundry in Taiwan, Zhong Nan Type Foundry, was announced closed, and then there were only 4.5 type foundries left in Taiwan in 2008. Now, Ri Xing is the only remaining Type Foundry in Taiwan located at No. 13, Lane 97, Taiyuan Road, Datong District, Taipei City.

The style and the writing of the font condensed the history memory and cultural connotation of a place, but they would disappear without leaving a trace along with the industrial decline without competitive digital preservation. What we lost is not only the font but also our own culture.

The only remaining movable type foundry in Taiwan, “Ri Xing Type Foundry”, is located at No. 13, Lane 97, Taiyuan Road, Taipei City, and it was established in 1969 for type character production only for printing industry. The father of owner Chien-Kuan Chang’s Mr Xi-Ling Chang was a worker in the printing plant during Japanese-ruling period, and he had worked at proof-reading department of “Taiwan People News”. He original wanted to set up a printing plant but the printing machines failed to meet the delivery time. In order to make the living for the whole family, “Ri Xing Type Foundry” was established in 1969 and the name of “Ri Xing” meant “daily production” with the hope of being able to carry on production every day. The foundry type was produced with lead solution melted in 400℃ high temperature inside typecasting machine.

According to the interview of Master Chien-Kuan Chang, the golden period of Ri Xing Type Foundry was in 1976. At that moment, both father and son took turn day and night for foundry type production and at least 100,000 words needed to be produced every day; however, the foundry type is only made now according to the demand of printing business and less than eight hours is spent on the work foundry type in a month. Taipei city councilor Yu-Yen Chien and Legislator Wen-Chih Yao held a press conference together at Ri Xing Type Foundry on November 17th, 2012 to suggest the government to emphasize the traditional industry and request to preserve the culture of foundry type in the same approach as museum. Taipei City Government picked up eleven outstanding citizens in Taipei from the list provided by selection committee on December 10th, 2012, and Master Chien-Kuan Chang was awarded “Taipei Outstanding Citizen” with his foundry type technique preservation and foundry type arts promotion.

Type mold collection
Ri Xing Type Foundry currently preserves three fonts including Regular Script, Gothic, and Song Typeface with every font seven sizes. There are also Chinese greeting words, English alphabets, Japanese characters, numbers, signs, and lace trimmings; more than 100,000 words of copper mold and type in total.

One of the copper molds among them was purchased from United Daily News, and this batch of font was from China instead of the Chinese font used at movable type industry in Taiwan after repairing and maintaining by Japanese craftsmen. United Daily News sold all of the equipment when they started to use the latest computer planographic printing, and Master Chien-Kuan Chang bought it back because he found it a big pity to lose it.

The most unique font of copper mold is the type named “Shanghai character”, also called “Feng Xing character”, and it was modified by the type font created by Feng Xing Type Foundry. It was a Chinese regular cooper mold produced by The Commercial Press, Shanghai with the preservation of unique Chinese calligraphic strokes and the beauty of font structure. It is the only regular type cooper mold in Taiwan that was retro-produced by old master in Shanghai in 1921 and was brought to Taiwan by the manufacturer in 1949; it is the most precious asset that Ri Xing has.

Source of information:
A Chih Bao Sina Blog: “Zhong Nan Type Foundry” and “Ri Xing Type Foundry”
http://blog.sina.com.tw/36029/article.php?pbgid=36029&entryid=596720
ETtoday News Cloud: Where is the footprint/ the last type foundry in Taiwan
http://www.ettoday.net/news/20130419/194140.htm#ixzz3rLOIZibDFollow us: @ETtodaynet on Twitter |
Mo Gu Vol. 12 “Old Stuff”: Ri Xing Type Foundry
http://rixingtypography.blogspot.tw/2009/03/blog-post_04.html
Forever word collection: Digital collection project of Chinese regular cooper mold and its font at Ri Xing Type Foundry
http://repository.digiarch.sinica.edu.tw/content/subject/resource_content.jsp?oid=16777769&queryType=qc

Data compilation：Pei-Yen, Yu-Chen
Photo taken by the camera team of CRS