This essay was written by Poom Rattavisit with a reference to ออกแบบภาษาอะไร? How do you Design with Thai Language? by Pongtorn Hiranpruek 

➜ I shall start this essay by illustrating one simple example—me. I am a Thai communication designer and I mostly work for Thai clients in a Thai environment, but my knowledge of English design and typography far exceeds my primary language’s. I usually find myself spending more time with the details of latin letterforms while treating Thai alphabets as mere text. I never used Thai fonts in any of my self-initiated designs. I read foreign novels and love text set in Sabon, Baskerville, Caslon, and Garamond, but I rarely read Thai books set in I-know-not-what typefaces. And when I write, I write in English. Why do I show such little concern for my own language? Because, in a sense, I am a classic product of Western Colonization. I was placed in an international school since grade 1 and never had any formal Thai education after kindergarden. So using English becomes natural and never once did i find it unusual to see English alphabets in a Thai design. Lately, however, there seems to be an increasing number of these classic, or more precisely classic-wannabe, products as bluntly pointed out by Pongtorn Hiranpruek in his short essay, ‘ออกแบบภาษาอะไร? How do you Design with Thai Language?’ (August 2010). Now, why is that? Why do we aspire to be something not of our making?

Perhaps it is best to begin by looking at our education system and how we are taught, not only in design school but in high school as well. Some people even go as far as stating that Thai education system is a failure. Failure in terms of teaching students how to think and inspiring them to love knowledge. Obviously, every Thai high school has a Thai language course and if it falls into the same collapsing system, how do we expect students to develop a fondness for their own language? In fact, there have been countless complaints by students and outsiders alike, that many teachers teach with little enthusiasm and rarely critique their students’ homework or essay. All they do is assign scores, numbers that define nothing in the long run. Furthermore, surviving a communication design program in a typical Thai university doesn’t require much skill in language. Many teachers may stress the importance of content but in actuality, they rarely read or show interest in what the students have written, especially when it’s long. Without any formal criticism, students continue to make poor choices when selecting keywords for typographic layouts. Moreover, whether the text is in Thai or English, it hardly ever matter. Some even prefer it in English, as it appears more convenient and possibly easier to evaluate as most design standards are imported. And generations after generations, as teachers retire and students replace them, this method of teaching continues to repeat itself.

Apart from the education system, there are certain beliefs that make us see Thai typography the way we see it today—the belief that it is difficult to make a good layout with Thai type; the belief that there are not enough variety of Thai typefaces; and the belief that Thai type does not compliment the overall design. These beliefs so strongly impregnate our mind that many designers choose to take the easy way out by using English type instead, believing that it is the ‘modern’ way to approach design. As pathetic as it sounds, there are people who consider it the definition of ‘cool’ and use it to place their designs in the latest trend. It is actually quite sad to see such a foolish idea influence the way we perceive design. Instead of solving a design problem, designers willingly turn to another problem—language. Many designers even use English without proper knowledge, resulting in various grammatical errors. When it comes to headlines, we put much effort into finding that cool phrase in English even though the body is entirely in Thai. We try our best to make it ‘English’ instead of properly and carefully using Thai. As a result, our city is filled with unnecessary English headlines, taglines, and slogans; and Thai typography continues to develop at a very sluggish rate.

A decade ago, one could say that technology is a hindrance, but nowadays, it makes a poor excuse. There shouldn’t be any reason why we can’t effectively design in Thai. Although the quantity of good Thai fonts available is enormously less than English fonts, it is already quite enough for everyday design purposes. And the number will increase as the access to tools and knowledge become more and more convenient. Additionally, people with positive outlook towards contemporary Thai typography is slowly but steadily increasing.

Another popular excuse of using English type is the belief that since they resemble geometric forms, they compliment the grid system in which we use for designing most of our layout. But thinking about it more critically, perhaps such excuse emerge from our little understanding of the English language. Because we comprehend English less than Thai, we tend to perceive it more abstractly as a ‘form’. When it comes to Thai however, we grasp it so quickly we tend to overlook its ‘form’.

As a matter of fact, the way we perceive the geometry and simplicity of latin alphabets only began in the 1950s with the widespread use of sans-serif typefaces. These fonts may first appeared in the early 1800s, but it is only after world war ii that they became a new standard, especially among swiss graphic designers. And when the approach to graphic design became more geometric in nature with the use of grids, typefaces developed in the same direction. Not only did design evolve, the way people read and look at type also evolve along with it. Though, it is not something that can happen overnight. Thai typefaces can experience a similar transformation and many contemporary fonts are indeed becoming cleaner and more simplified, reflecting our current design culture; if only we do not turn away from it first.

Designers themselves are also partly at fault here. Some even unnecessarily promote the use of latin alphabets to clients, enough so to set a ridiculous trend in contemporary Thai communication design. There are many projects in which the use of English is inessential but we continue to be afraid of our own language, afraid that once used, it would stand out of the modern trend we have absurdly constructed ourselves. One could see examples in how people name their companies and brands. English names usually require English logotype and lettering. Thus the more designers design in English, the less skilled they become in Thai, resulting in little improvement in Thai lettering as a whole. Additionally, the innovative softwares with their easy-to-use font menu and the abundance of typefaces available certainly help accelerate the death of lettering skills. And even with the short list of Thai fonts, Thai lettering is also a victim of this same crime. Today, it is actually quite difficult to find Thai designers with such skills, whether it’s Thai or English.

Aside from the technical and cultural reasons mentioned above, another powerful factor that shouldn’t be overlooked is pride. How much pride do we, designers, have in our own language? Or rather how much pride do we have in being Thai? We cannot deny that where we stand on the international stage and how much we are respected internationally influence the way we see, use, and create things. After all, it may be this individual pride that sculpted the way we approach communication design and typography today. If only Thai designers would take content more seriously, if only we learn to value our language and alphabets, if only we are conscious of our design methods, and if only we could suspend all those rubbish beliefs and make an effort to really work with Thai letterforms, at least the environment we live in would change. And hopefully what we perceive everyday could help us see the aesthetics of our own culture and language. Otherwise, the more we look up to international culture, the less we appreciate ours. And once we take for granted that designing in English is merely ‘cool’, our culture would cease to be a part of (Thai) design, it would just remain a shattered fragment of our humble history.