Nikkei Line

A tribute to Japanese immigration to America through typography.

Free to try
Licenses starting at $40

Nikkei Line style list

18 Styles

AaBbCc
01234567
{(!@#$?&)}
  • Thin 100
  • Ultralight 200
  • Light 300
  • Regular 400
  • Medium 500
  • Semibold 600
  • Bold 700
  • Ultrabold 800
  • Heavy 900
  • Thin Italic 100
  • Ultralight Italic 200
  • Light Italic 300
  • Regular Italic 400
  • Medium Italic 500
  • Semibold Italic 600
  • Bold Italic 700
  • Ultrabold Italic 800
  • Heavy Italic 900
Nikkei Line
On the American continent.
Nikkei Line
A tribute to Japanese immigration to America.
Nikkei Line
Honoring the stories of Japanese immigrants and their descendants through typography. “Nikkei” refers to Japanese individuals and their descendants who live outside Japan. Five typographic systems were made, each expressing unique concepts, yet all interlaced by a common historical narrative.
Nikkei Line
The inspiration came from various sources, including hand-lettered on ships; newspapers of the Nikkei communities; Japanese family crests. Offering versatile title fonts whose proportions and stylistic alternatives allow for playful options for title compositions. This process began on June 18, 1908, when the ship Kasato Maru arrived in the country bringing 781 workers to farms in the interior of São Paulo. Consequently, June 18 was established as the national day of Japanese immigration. In 1973, the flow stopped almost completely after the Nippon Maru immigration ship arrived; at that time, there were almost 200,000 Japanese settled in the country. Currently, there are approximately one million Japanese-Brazilians, mostly living in the states of São Paulo and Paraná. According to a 2016 survey published by IPEA, in a total of 46 801 772 Brazilians' names analyzed, 315 925 or 0.7% of them had the only or last name of Japanese origin. The descendants of Japanese are called Nikkei, their children are Nisei, their grandchildren are Sansei, and their great-grandchildren are Yonsei. Japanese-Brazilians who moved to Japan in search of work and settled there from the late 1980s onwards are called dekasegi. Due to the expansion of coffee plantations, which was the major driver of the Brazilian economy from the second half of the 19th century until the 1920s, there was a demand for cheap workforce in rural São Paulo. The first official visit to pursue a diplomatic trade agreement with Japan took place in 1880. On November 16 of that year, Vice Admiral Artur Silveira da Mota began negotiations in Tokyo to establish a Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the two countries. Mota was received by the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kagenori Ueno.
Nikkei Line is variable

Nikkei
Line

Glyphs set overview

Glyphs set overview

Glyphs View

Nikkei Line's Features

Proportional Caps
B D E F H L P R T U Z
B D E F H L P R T U Z
Case sensitive forms
{[(OH-@11:11!)]}
{[(OH-@11:11!)]}
Standard ligatures
fi ff ffi fl ffl
fi ff ffi fl ffl

A Typeface Woven With Memory.

Ships, historical landmarks of this journey, showed through photos from a historical archive a uniform typographic system in the letters painted on their hulls. A notable feature was the reverse contrast, and the common use of the “Line” suffix in names, such as “Toho Line” and “Japan Line.”

PP Nikkei is a tribute to Japanese immigration to America through typography, honoring the stories of Japanese immigrants and their descendants. “Nikkei” refers to Japanese individuals and their descendants who live outside Japan.

Designers

Collaborators

Categories

  • Brutalist
  • Expressive
  • Italics
  • Serif
  • Variable

Styles

  • 18 Styles

18 Styles with 513 Glyphs each
Including Italics & Crest Set

Explore the complete family

Version

1.00

Latest update: March 2024

Available formats

OTF, TTF, WOFF, WOFF2

Language Support

Afrikaans, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Gaelic, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lituanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Saami, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Turkish, (and more)

Commercial Licenses

Love Nikkei Line for your project? Grab our comprehensive licenses below.

Subtotal in USD
Not sure what to get? Or can’t find the right coverage?

Please contact us for our tailored corporate licenses!

Contact Us
Need more information about our licenses?

Our FAQ usually contains most of the answers.

Read our FAQ

Nikkei in use

View all
Branding

Mirá

View project
Branding

Toilet Twinning

View project