“Neither the food nor the fonts bear any real relation to true Chinese cuisine or calligraphy.
“Mandarin, originally known as Chinese, is the granddaddy of ‘chop suey’ types,” Shaw wrote in the design magazine, Print. It is perhaps no surprise that this Eastern-inspired lettering emerged in the late 19th century, an era when Orientalism coursed feverishly through the West. Shaw traces the fonts’ origins to the Cleveland Type Foundry which obtained a patent for a calligraphy-style printing type, later named Mandarin, in 1883. These “chop suey fonts,” as American historian Paul Shaw calls them, have been a typographical shortcut for “Asianness” for decades. There’s a good chance you pictured letters made from the swingy, wedge-shaped strokes you’ve seen on restaurant signs, menus, take-away boxes and kung-fu movie posters.
Here’s a thought experiment: Close your eyes and imagine the font you’d use to depict the word “Chinese.”
