ALIBABA GROUP FONTS
PARTNERS
Monotype
Hanyi
WHAT
Typography
Art direction
Project management
YEAR
2019
BACKGROUND
Created to address the diverse needs of Alibaba's expanding businesses, the custom typeface unifies its global image with custom design solutions while providing businesses with copyright-free font resources.
ROLE
I partnered with Monotype and Hanyi to oversee the development of Alibaba's corporate fonts, ensuring alignment with Alibaba's culture and brand values. My responsibilities included providing overall art direction, overseeing the process from design to launch at Alibaba Design week.
RESULT
Alibaba's copyright-free fonts for commercial use became an instant hit in China, with 15.3 million views on Weibo on launch day. Despite no marketing spend, the fonts quickly became a top 50 search and the fifth trending topic on the microblogging platform.
You can download Alibaba Sans and Alibaba PuHuiTi here.
We aligned the created fonts with Alibaba's branding by gathering input from internal business units, distilling keywords from employees' feedback, and ensuring its suitability for online/offline use, legibility on small screens, large building facades, and sales festivals.
01 DESIGN PROCESS
Alibaba Group's corporate fonts consist of two styles: Alibaba Sans for Latin characters and Alibaba PuHuiTi for Chinese characters.
Alibaba Sans features a distinctive rounded square shape, which is characterised by a shortened top stroke on the lowercase "a" and an extended bowl. This unique form is also evident in the punctuation marks and dots, as well as the letters "i" and "j".
02 DESIGN DETAILS
Alibaba Sans
Alibaba PuHuiTi has a visually centered design. This results in a narrower design, with businesses being able to squeeze more information in - an essential requirement in e-commerce settings. Its font family has different designs for various weights. Bold and heavy weights have simplified protruding feet for a sleek look, while lighter weights retain the feet. Compare the 国 character in different weights.
Alibaba PuHuiTi
02 DESIGN DETAILS
We had a co-exhibition with Monotype, one of our font partners, at Alibaba Design week.
I also had the opportunity to share the design process behind the production of the fonts at one of the seminars.
03 FONTS LAUNCH
04 RECEPTION
On launch day, Alibaba PuHuiTi and Alibaba Sans were incredibly popular in China, even without any marketing efforts. We received approximately 15.3 million views on Weibo, with Alibaba PuHuiTi ranking in the top 50 searches and becoming the fifth trending topic. Chinese users on WeChat responded overwhelmingly positively. We were featured in Design360° magazine and received coverage from international media outlets like Fast Company and Campaign Asia.
05 APPLICATIONS
After the fonts were launched, they were used across all offline and online platforms. Selected examples are showcased below.
Jack Ma, standing against the 2019 women entrepreneurship conference's backdrop.
Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba Group, addressing investors during the 2019 Investor Day.
The fonts were used on the visitors’ building at the Alibaba Xixi campus in Hangzhou.
Use of Alibaba Sans on the big screen during the 2018 Double Eleven's shopping festival
Alibaba PuHuiTi was used extensively at the 2019 Taobao Makers' Festival.
