Designer takes a graphic approach to Taiwan's history and culture

When Taiwanese graphic designer Liao Tien-min moved to New York in 2011, one thing attracted her immediate attention: typography. "Here, every typeface expresses its own personality," she says.

Designers agonise over choosing the right set of characters for their projects. Even non-designers have been swept up in the obsession, thanks to Gary Hustwit's 2007 documentary, Helvetica.

But for Liao, it was all new. "I didn't learn anything about it in Taiwan," she says. "It's not as important in Chinese - I don't know why. I was surprised that there were so many different typefaces. When I was in Taiwan they look all the same - I thought Helvetica and Gill Sans were very similar. I also wondered why the capital and the lower case were so different in some cases like A, while others look similar, like I."

That led to Handmade Type, a project completed while Liao was studying for a master's degree in design at the Pratt Institute in New York. By drawing 26 sets of shapes on her hands, Liao was able to create upper-case, lower-case and italicised versions of each letter in the alphabet, a process that reveals the organic origins of what has become a mechanised form of communication.

Liao's most recent project was also inspired by her move to New York - but in this case, it stemmed not from any discovery on her part but from how ignorant Americans were about her home island.

"They asked where I was from and I would say Taiwan. People usually didn't know where it was," Liao says. "Some people said, 'I love Thai food.'"