A is for fonts blog help fonts blog help cart my account Tongari display Tongari text circé A is for Heavy brushes soaked in black ink By Émilie Rigaud 20 September 2021 History | Japan After a previous post about Japanese typography , I would like to talk now about Japanese lettering and its powerful shapes . Unlike typography, which repeats letters in an identical way, lettering is the making of signs for a specific situation. The thus created word-image is unique because its shape depends on the word choice, the context and the surface it has been made for. What are Edo moji? What we call nowadays « edo moji » (江戸文字) are all the lettering styles that emerged at the end of Edo period (1600-1868), from about the mid-18th century to the mid-19th century.  « Moji » means « sign » (or « letter ») and Edo is the old name of Tôkyô. Japan was then closed to foreigners, ...