SCREEN GA Signs Partnership Agreement with Hanyi Fonts for Distribution of Hiragino Fonts in China

June 15, 2023

SCREEN Graphic Solutions Co., Ltd. (SCREEN GA) today announced that it has signed a distribution agreement with Beijing Hanyi Innovation Technology Co., Ltd. and its subsidiary Shanghai Etrump Information Technology Co., Ltd.1 (collectively referred to as Hanyi Fonts) to release its Hiragino Kaku Gothic Simplified Chinese fonts in the Chinese market. Starting from early June, these fonts will be available through the sales channels operated by both companies.

In recent years, high-quality fonts are increasingly being used in China to improve the standard of video production and content distributed through social media. To meet this demand, SCREEN GA has signed a distribution agreement with Hanyi Fonts to release its Hiragino Kaku Gothic Simplified Chinese fonts in the Chinese market.

Hanyi Fonts is involved in the culture creation and high-tech fields and specializes in font design and product development, research into Chinese character information technology, and the creation of applied solutions. Hanyi Fonts also has a history of collaborating with SCREEN GA when it was creating its own Hiragino Kaku Gothic Simplified Chinese fonts.

Under the new agreement, SCREEN GA’s Hiragino Kaku Gothic Simplified Chinese fonts will be available through Hanyi Fonts’ official Website (www.hanyi.com.cn), and Hanyi Fonts’ online font store, HelloFont (www.hellofont.cn). Sales will start from early June.

With Hanyi Fonts’ support during their development, Hiragino Kaku Gothic Simplified Chinese fonts became the first Chinese language fonts created by a Japanese maker to receive China’s GB 18030-20002 character set certification. They inherit the design of SCREEN GA’s Hiragino Kaku Gothic and feature sharp, modern characters with outstanding attention to the smallest details.

At present, two font sets are available: Hiragino Kaku Gothic Simplified Chinese, compatible with GB 18030- 2000, and Hiragino Kaku Gothic Simplified Chinese Std, compatible with GB 2312-80.3 Both sets can be used in a wide variety of situations, ranging from packaging and advertising to video production.

SCREEN GA expects its new distribution agreement with Hanyi Fonts will help to accelerate the adoption of Hiragino fonts in the Chinese market. Going forward, the company plans to leverage its proven track record and extensive know-how in creating high-quality characters to continuously provide market-leading multilingual fonts.

Available Fonts

• Available via Hanyi Fonts’ official Website
Hiragino Kaku Gothic Simplified Chinese: W3, W6 (Compatible with GB 18030-2000)
Hiragino Kaku Gothic Simplified Chinese Std: W0, W1, W2, W3, W4, W5, W6 (Compatible with GB 2312-80)

• Available via HelloFont online store
Hiragino Kaku Gothic Simplified Chinese Std: W0, W1, W2, W3, W4, W5, W6 (Compatible with GB 2312-80)

Comments by Yukiyoshi Tanaka, President of SCREEN Graphic Solutions Co., Ltd.

As a fellow Asian font maker, we are extremely happy to begin our sales collaboration with Hanyi Fonts, one of the leading companies in the Chinese market. With the current penetration of digital media, the Chinese language font market is growing rapidly and we have also seen a noticeable increase in demand for our simplified Chinese fonts. We hope our new distribution agreement will enable even more Chinese users to appreciate the excellent legibility of Hiragino characters and begin using the fonts in a wide range of situations.

Comments by Liqun Xie, Chairman of Beijing Hanyi Innovation Technology Co., Ltd.

Our connection with Hiragino fonts goes right back to 2007. At that time, we collaborated on the development of a Chinese standard (GB) version based on the Japanese fonts. That was Hiragino Kaku Gothic Simplified Chinese and it became a popular system font. We have now signed a new partnership agreement. This will enable the introduction of an upgraded simplified Chinese font family including seven weights to the domestic market.

Hiragino fonts are suitable for such a wide variety of situations and have become a firm favorite with local designers. We truly hope they will become the new preference in body text fonts for the Chinese language.

Beijing Hanyi Innovation Technology Co., Ltd.

Hanyi Fonts is involved in the culture creation and high-tech fields and specializes in font design and product development, research into Chinese character information technology, and the creation of applied solutions. It holds various core intellectual property rights in these areas.

On August 31, 2022, Hanyi was listed on ChiNext, a subsidiary of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (abbreviated name: Hanyi Corporation, securities code: 301270.SZ). The corporation’s main areas of business include font design, library software development and sales, library system technical services, visual design services, and rights management services.

1. Shanghai Etrump Information Technology Co., Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Beijing Hanyi Innovation Technology Co., Ltd.

2. This is a Chinese national standard character set and contains over 20,000 items. Electronic products sold in China are required to use fonts compliant with this standard set.

3. This character set has also been established as a Chinese national standard. It is widely used within China and often appears in advertisements and catalogs and on Websites.

Note: Hiragino is a trademark and/or registered trademark of SCREEN Holdings Co., Ltd. in Japan and certain other countries.