Kikai Chokoku JIS
Kikai Chokoku JIS (機械彫刻用標準書体) is a free font that is a digital revival of the lettering styles specified by the Japanese Industrial Standards or JIS for industrial engraving. With the purpose for carving letters into materials like acrylic or metal using the manual engraving machines, the font design possesses a unique “functional beauty” born from the mechanical constraints. For examples it has constant line width or thickness, rounded terminals and simplified structured that prioritize efficiency and readability on smaller sizes. Some characters are also refined to better fit and function as the modern digital typeface.
From the image above of the font, you can see its simplicity and strong mechanical vibe. Its job is to communicate with high clarity, without invoking any biases or any emotions. This font is best for signage, labels, technical diagrams, and designs seeking a traditional, vintage industrial and hardware aesthetic.
Kikai Chokoku JIS comes with the standard Japanese characters and included closed to 2,000 kanji characters that are based from the common characters for machine engraving (JIS Z 8903). Besides that it also supports latin alphanumeric. This font was released back in 2015, but it has been updated progressively till now to refine and include more characters.
This font is free to download and be used on personal and commercial project.
Usage Permission
- Free for personal and commercial use
Link
Supported characters
- Hiragana and Katakana
- Kanji (1921 characters)
- Alphanumerics
- Latin characters
- Symbols and Punctuations