We (WaniKani) are looking for someone to help us create original vector images of kanji radicals for use on WaniKani. I thought it would make sense to come to the WaniKani community first. You already “get” what radicals are, and maybe it would be nice to see your work appear in something that you and other WK members use on a daily basis.
Here’s our problem:
Currently, radicals are rendered differently depending on the font installed on the user’s computer. This would be fine, except not all of the radicals used on WaniKani actually exist as a type-able element. For those, we created images, but that means there is an inconsistency in how the radicals look. Depending on someone’s system font, most radicals will show up one way, and image-based-radicals will show up another.
In order to fix this, we would like to display all radicals as svg files.
But, if we do this, we can’t just make exact copies of an existing font. They will need to be original and drawn by hand (or mouse, or tablet, etc). Anyways, the important thing is that they’re not just exact tracings or duplicates of something that exists. That’s stealing, after all.
For the most part, we will just use the radicals from our radicals list (though there may be a handful of new radicals added to it).
There are 400+ of these that need to be produced. Some points on what we are looking for:
- Medium weight: should be scalable whether displayed as small, or large.
- Simple styling: should be mostly (or all) sans-serif.
- Consistent sizing: in general, we want the radicals to look like they all belong as part of a set. In most cases, that means two sides of the radical should touch the edges of the canvas, either top and bottom (if radical is taller than it is wide) or right and left (if radical is wider than it is tall).
- Original: similar to an existing font is okay, but these should not be copies or tracings of another font.
To apply, please submit three completed radicals in .ai or .eps file format for us to view. In your email, please tell us a little bit about yourself, why you would be good for this contract, as well as an estimate on how long you think it would take to complete all ~450 of these. Send that email to jobs+radicals@tofugu.com. Questions to that email, or even here on this thread, are okay too.
We will pay $2,500 for the completed project. Bonus may be applicable for extra speedy completion. This is a contract position.