You’ve seen it before — bold, jagged lettering used on movie posters, safari tours, charity campaigns, and restaurant signs. The so-called “African” font: earthy tones, tribal patterns, uneven strokes. It’s meant to evoke the continent’s “vibe” — wild, raw, authentic.

But here’s the catch: most of those fonts weren’t designed in Africa at all.
They were designed in America, by designers who’ve often never set foot on the continent.

And that simple fact says a lot about how Western media continues to shape — and stereotype — African identity through design.

When Aesthetic Becomes Assumption

The “African-style” font as we know it didn’t emerge from African typographic traditions. It emerged from Hollywood.

Think of posters for films like The Lion King, Out of Africa, or Madagascar. Each one uses typefaces that share a certain look — irregular strokes, uneven letterforms, and earthy, ochre tones. The design shorthand says “Africa”, but what it’s really saying is “a Western fantasy of Africa”.

These fonts are often bundled on stock websites or in font libraries under names like Safari, Tribal, or Zebrawood. They’re built to communicate exoticism, wilderness, or adventure — not the diverse, contemporary realities of 54 different countries.

In short, they’re not cultural representation. They’re branding.

The Problem With Design Shortcuts

Typography is storytelling. It carries history, emotion, and identity — whether you realise it or not.

So when a single “African” font becomes the go-to design choice for anything related to the entire continent, it flattens centuries of culture into a cartoon aesthetic. It tells audiences that Africa is one monolithic “vibe”, not a tapestry of languages, scripts, and design traditions.

Even worse, it continues the colonial-era habit of defining Africa through an outsider’s lens — one that’s exotic, primitive, or untamed.

The irony? While American studios were designing these “tribal” fonts, African designers were already creating contemporary typefaces inspired by Akan symbols, Amharic script, Nsibidi, Ge’ez, N’Ko, and Arabic calligraphy — fonts that rarely make it into Western media kits or corporate brand decks.

Designing Without Context

To be clear, the issue isn’t just about who designs a font — it’s how it’s used.
A font inspired by traditional patterns or shapes isn’t inherently offensive. But when it’s applied carelessly — slapped onto film titles, travel brochures, or charity posters — it becomes a shorthand for “otherness”.

It’s the design equivalent of using a drumbeat to signal “Africa” in a movie soundtrack.
It’s lazy, outdated, and reductive.

Good design requires context. It requires understanding. And if a font is being used to “represent Africa”, that understanding should come from African designers, artists, and typographers themselves.

Reclaiming the Narrative

The good news is that this is already changing.
Across Africa, designers are reclaiming their visual identities — not through imitation of Western styles, but by drawing from their own heritage in new, innovative ways.

Studios in Lagos, Nairobi, Cape Town and Accra are creating fonts rooted in local languages and aesthetics. Projects like African Typeface Design and TypeFoundry ZA are reshaping what African design looks like in the global space.

It’s design by Africans, for everyone — not design by Americans, for Western expectations of what “Africa” should feel like.

Why It Matters

Fonts aren’t neutral. They communicate ideas long before you read the words they spell out.
When the same visual clichés are used again and again, they reinforce the same narrow story — one where Africa is exotic, undeveloped, or “wild”.

Designers hold power in shaping perception. And that means questioning where our fonts, colour palettes and “themes” really come from — and whose story they tell.

Because cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation often look the same on the surface — it’s the intention and understanding beneath that makes all the difference.

So next time you see a “tribal” font used to represent Africa, ask yourself — is this really African design, or just another American interpretation of it?

The origins of the stereotypical “Chinese-looking” font go back to the early 20th century, when Western printers began designing typefaces that would “look Oriental” to Western audiences.

They used brushstroke-like strokes, squared-off serifs, and sharp corners meant to mimic Chinese calligraphy — but only visually, not linguistically. These fonts had nothing to do with real Chinese type design or traditional writing systems.

Fonts like “Wonton,” “Chop Suey,” and “Chinese Takeaway” (yes, those are real names) were created in the United States, designed by white typographers who wanted to evoke “exoticism” and “mystery.”

It wasn’t about communication — it was about aesthetic stereotype.

Typography as Costume

In Hollywood’s Golden Age, these fonts became shorthand for anything vaguely “Asian.”
Movie posters, restaurant signs, and even TV shows used them as visual cues: the letters themselves were a costume — a quick way to say “this is Chinese” without needing to understand the culture.

You didn’t need to read Chinese to “get it.” The font did the talking.

But here’s the problem: it wasn’t speaking Chinese — it was speaking American fantasy.

Designing Identity from the Outside In

Just like the so-called “African” fonts designed in the West, these “Chop Suey” typefaces compress an entire civilisation into a single visual trope.

They take the complex beauty of Chinese calligraphy — one of the world’s oldest and most revered art forms — and flatten it into a gimmick: angular, symmetrical, and conveniently “foreign.”

It’s the visual equivalent of using a gong sound in a movie whenever a Chinese character appears.
Instant recognition, zero understanding.

How It Persists Today

You might think we’ve outgrown this — but take a walk through any Western city’s “Chinatown,” or glance at the branding of an “Asian-fusion” restaurant, and you’ll still see it: that same stereotypical typeface, often paired with red and gold colouring.

It’s not always malicious, but it is lazy.
Designers reach for these fonts because they’ve been coded into visual culture for decades. They signal “Chinese” to Western audiences, even if they’re historically and culturally inaccurate.

Meanwhile, real Chinese typography has evolved with incredible sophistication — from elegant Songti typefaces to experimental Simplified Chinese Sans-serifs used in tech and fashion. Yet these authentic designs rarely make it into Western branding.

The Bigger Issue: Who Designs for Whom

This isn’t just about one typeface — it’s about power and perspective in design.
For centuries, Western media has been in the habit of defining other cultures visually — reducing entire identities into symbols that feel familiar to them.

When design is created about a culture rather than from within it, it tends to tell one story: the outsider’s.

And when those same visual clichés are used over and over, they stop being “design language” and start being stereotype.

Reclaiming Authentic Typography

Thankfully, there’s a growing movement of Chinese and East Asian designers pushing back.
Independent studios in Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei and Hong Kong are creating new typefaces that blend modern design with traditional calligraphy — fonts that reflect real cultural aesthetics, not caricatures of them.

Projects like Pangram Pangram’s collaborations with Chinese typographers and TypeLand China’s work on contemporary Chinese scripts are proving that global design doesn’t need to rely on outdated tropes to feel recognisable.

The future of typography is inclusive — and that means letting cultures design themselves.

Design Is Language — So Let’s Use It Responsibly

Fonts are more than decoration; they’re communication.
When a font pretends to represent an entire culture but is rooted in stereotype, it doesn’t just misinform — it diminishes.

It’s time designers ask tougher questions:
Who made this? Who is it for? And what story does it tell?

Because if the “Chinese” font was born in America, maybe it’s time we stop calling it Chinese — and start calling it what it really is: a Western fantasy of the East.

Typography tells stories. Let’s make sure they’re the right ones.