I did this for Hangul years ago on an embedded video OSD system to save font ROM space. But this composition of letter into syllables is fundamental to how Hangul works. Once I had rediscovered the old “Johab” concept of making the syllables, it was simple to adapt it for my purpose.

I searched briefly into Chinese, but concluded this technique wouldn’t be possible. But a couple years later while visiting a font artwork exhibit at a museum in Seoul, I saw an example of using this composition technique for Chinese symbols, using combinations of woodblocks. I’ve always wondered if this method had ever been implemented for computers.

Cool Project!