Dr. Zhao Liu
Type designer & Chinese expert
Liu Zhao is a Chinese type designer, researcher, and educator. She is an Associate Professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) and Deputy Director of the Chinese Typography Art & Design Research Center.
Her work spans contemporary Chinese typefaces and historical scripts, including Oracle Bone Script, Tangut, Khitan Small Script, and Nüshu, as well as traditional Chinese musical notation systems such as Jianzipu. Through type design and digital font development, she has supported the submission of Unicode encoding proposals for traditional Chinese writing systems.
Liu has led major international and cultural projects, including typographic and graphic consulting for the China Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka, which received the Gold Award in the Large Self-Built Pavilion Exhibition category. Her work has received recognition from D&AD, New York TDC, Tokyo TDC, and Hiii Illustration, including awards for projects involving Nüshu, Khitan Small Script, and Oracle Bone Script. She has also curated exhibitions and developed publications exploring the history and contemporary practice of Chinese type design.
Alongside her design and research practice, Liu has translated, edited, and annotated a number of influential books on typography and type design, contributing to the exchange of international knowledge in China.
