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100 FONTS PROJECT
100 FONTS / 100,000 KANJI
100 typefaces. 100,000 kanji.
I am creating 100 handwritten typefaces.
Each typeface contains approximately 1,000 kanji,
along with hiragana, katakana, the Latin alphabet, numerals, and symbols.
Bird feathers, bamboo, pine needles, yarn, plants, conventional brushes, and digital tools.
Different tools and materials are put through the same writing system.
What will handwritten letters look like after creating 100 typefaces?
I want to find out.
10 / 100 IN PROGRESS
WHY 100?
Why 100 typefaces?
I have long been interested in what can emerge when something is made in large quantities—something that could not be seen before.
Writing the same character again and again.
Filling a space with countless characters.
Making brushes from 100 bird feathers.
And now, I am making typefaces in quantity.
One is simply one typeface.
But when there are 10, 50, or 100 of them side by side, how will their individuality appear?
There is no predetermined answer in the number 100.
I simply want to go far enough to see something that cannot be seen otherwise—and see it with my own eyes.
WHY 1,000 KANJI?
Why 1,000 kanji?
With a single character, I can choose one that suits the material.
With 1,000, I cannot.
Straight lines, curves, dots, sweeping strokes.
Characters with only a few strokes, and characters with many.
In addition to kanji, I also create hiragana, katakana, the Latin alphabet, numerals, and symbols.
Rather than adapting the characters to suit each material, I put different materials and tools through the same writing system.
For me, 1,000 kanji is not simply a number of characters.
It is a condition for extending a single material or tool into an entire writing system.
TOOLS & MATERIALS
Making letters from tools.
Writing tools are not limited to brushes.
Bird feathers, plants, yarn, well-used brushes.
I turn materials that carry personal meaning for me into tools for writing.
When the material changes, the line changes.
And when the line changes, the same character can take on an entirely different form.
What remains, and what changes, when a material is put through a writing system?
Through the process of creating 100 typefaces, the 100 FONTS PROJECT explores what might emerge beyond them.
Even when writing the same character, a different tool produces a different line.
Hardness, softness, splitting, fading, resistance, chance.
I try not to over-refine these differences, while searching for the point at which they can still exist as legible characters.
FROM PAST TO NOW
Creating letters in large quantities.
In the Crowd series (2005), I treated large numbers of written characters as a “crowd.”
《Crowd》
《After the Crowd》
《,and crowd lost.》
In the Crowded series (2006), I layered characters, made them transparent, obscured them, and transformed them into lines, contours, light, and shadow.
Crowded 1/3
Crowded 1/3 high
Crowded 2/3
Crowded 3/3
In Outline (2007), I wrote characters across approximately 200 meters of fabric, filling an entire museum room with writing.
0utline
In the TORIFUDE series (2011–2022), I made my own brushes from bird feathers and created works using 100 different handmade feather brushes.
Original feather brushes100
TORIFUDE 100, 2011
Throughout my career, I have made work by following whatever interested me at the time: my relationship with calligraphy, and the question of what calligraphy could do.
Crowd, Crowded, Outline, and the TORIFUDE works each emerged at different stages of my practice, and I considered each series complete in itself.
Many years later, I began designing typefaces.
Writing 1,000 kanji for each typeface.
Changing the tool. Changing the material.
And repeating the process until there are 100 typefaces.
As the project developed, I began to notice that the characters, quantity, tools, materials, and repetition that had once appeared separately in my earlier works were appearing again in what I was making now.
Things I had created simply by following my interests at different moments have, after many years, unexpectedly begun to converge in my current work.
JOURNEY OF LETTERS
Around the world for the second time.
This time, a journey through writing.
1st Journey — Calligraphy— 2012
I traveled around the world giving calligraphy performances, workshops, and exhibitions.
2nd Journey — Letters / Tools / Materials — 2026
Thailand → Türkiye → Egypt → Greece → UK → Peru → Mexico
This time, I am traveling in search of writing, writing tools, materials, and writing cultures.
The materials and discoveries I encounter along the way will become the starting points for new typefaces after I return to Japan.
When I tell people I travel around the world, they may imagine that I am adventurous and love traveling.
In reality, I am quite a homebody.
And despite being a calligrapher, I can be surprisingly reluctant to pick up a brush.
But when there is something I want to see, I go.
And when I find something I want to explore through writing, I can work on it so intensely that I forget to eat or sleep.
A homebody calligrapher who is reluctant to pick up her brush, traveling around the world for the second time.
This time, I am traveling in search of writing.
FONT RELEASES
From letters to look at, to letters to use.
The characters I create are not only exhibited as works.
They are also developed into typefaces that people can actually use.
Once they leave my hands, these characters become someone else’s words and designs, appearing in places I may never know.
That, too, is something I want to see through this project.
001 Jungle Cock — Released
More typefaces will be released as they are completed.
001 Jungle Cock — Typeface Sample
A collection of typefaces digitized from my original handwritten forms.
Japanese calligraphic typefaces for use across design, publishing, film, and other fields.
A collection of fonts digitized from an original calligraphic style. Versatile Japanese calligraphy fonts for use in design, publishing, video production, and more.
Adobe-Fonts
AB-Junglecock-01
→ The font is available here.
WHAT WILL 100 FONTS LOOK LIKE?
What will become visible after 100 typefaces?
Will the differences between them become even clearer?
Or, as their number grows, will their individuality begin to dissolve until they appear as one vast crowd of “handwritten letters”?
Will the differences between materials remain?
Or will the structure of the writing system become more dominant?
Perhaps something I cannot yet imagine will emerge.
I do not know.
I decided on 100, so I will make 100.
What I will find when I get there remains open.
I want to see the world of writing that can only become visible after making it in such quantity.