With regard to gradually damaged “copper mold”, master Chien-Kuan Chang also launched “movable font retro plan” to provide people who are interested in it an opportunity to join the font maintenance and font digital preservation. Chien-Kuan Chang’s passion doesn’t decrease even though the progress is slow and frustration appears everywhere, and he hopes to build an interactive museum which visitors can operate for experience there but not a museum that only displays old properties. Master Chien-Kuan Chang said, “The technique and asset cultivated from this land must be preserved and passed on.”

1.Cultural and creative values
In America, many people still keep the habit of handwriting greeting card, and the greeting cards in movable type are especially popular. In Japan, annual business turnover for type foundry is still more than 10 million NT dollars because Japanese like to receive special hand-made business card. Other than selling traditional types, Ri Xing Type Foundry has a group of volunteers who are with the same concept to support Ri Xing for the opportunity of transition; that is developing cultural and creative products. “These products are actually designed by volunteers, and nearly all of the volunteers are graphic designers or designers from other industries. After we assist designers to complete the products, we sell the products or supply them to a specific object.” Through different packing and elements, the movable type is turned into another kind of commodity pattern and is brought lots of opportunities for the industry.

2.Transition
Suho Paper Memorial Museum in Taiwan uses the similar business mode and turns the old factory that provided service to other companies into cultural and creative base which teaches through lively activities. Ri Xing Type Foundry hopes to be able to become a movable type technology museum someday and become the important cultural asset for the society. The lifelong wish of master Chien-Kuan Chang’s is to establish a “movable type technology museum”; not only for preserving relevant hardware of movable type but most importantly, to pass on the skill of movable type.” Therefore, Mr. Chang is always more than happy to share and discuss with the visitors, scholars, or researchers that come for a visit if time permits.

“From many years ago, Ri Xing Type Foundry hopes to position movable type technique on cultural level and derived its uniqueness from artistic quality. The tool used to write Chinese character is soft brush, and the sense of type beauty presented is different from the font in Europe that using goose quill or blade ruling pen to write with.” Based on such positioning, master Chien-Kuan Chang wants to transform Ri Xi Type Foundry into technology museum but not general museum. “Ideal technology museum must include the functions of life, education and inheritance. It is a place that offers people opportunities to experience and operate as well as being able to carry on operating. From space, funding to layout of the museum, each stage needs a long way to work on. I am now more than 60 years old and sometime I doubt whether I can complete the wish before the end of my life or not, but I will keep doing it as long as I can.” Master Chien-Kuan Chang said firmly that “he wants to make Chinese character become a culture that can be seen internationally for Taiwan!”

The lifelong wish of the owner Mr. Chang’s is to establish a “movable type technology museum”; not only for preserving relevant hardware of movable type but more importantly, to pass on the skill of movable type.

3.Chinese character retro plan
Master Chien-Kuan Chang once promoted “Chinese character retro plan” in order to engrave the type copper mold that old masters carved several dozen years ago but is now facing collapse. Other than the shortage of budget, the program also faces the even more difficult problem of technical personnel. The characters engraved for the program was lack of consistency and the fonts were with different beauty by the work of different people. The three-to-four-year project was announced failure in the end, and master Chien-Kuan Chang sighed with deep feelings that old industry is very difficult to keep!

Source of information:
  Taiwan movable type culture preservation association
  http://rixingtypography.blogspot.tw/
  Seeking the soul ofcharacter and printing- Ri Xing Type Foundry
  http://udn.com/news/story/7232/1294974/

Data compilation: Chih-Yu, Shao-Ting
Photo taken by the camera team of CRS