招牌字體給一個城市的集體印象

若問香港的街景給訪客留下什麼印象？相信最普遍的答案會是在大街小巷掛滿的各式各樣以中文正楷書寫的招牌、門牌和廣告牌。雖然隨著時代變遷，採用乏味的電腦字體越趨普遍，但傳統的書法字體仍然佔一席位。講到香港的招牌，從上世紀六十年代開始，已流行採用楷體為主的書寫字體，據說大多數招牌上的字都是出自一位在街頭擺檔的「寫字佬」李漢先生的手筆。這位李先生的字，在香港各區的街道流行了大半個世紀。由於當時製作招牌廣告的需求巨大，李先生把字典上的常用字都書寫下來，在退休前將整套書法手稿贈予一位製作招牌的好友李威。最近，李威的兒子決定將整套李漢字體數碼化，以眾籌方式製作電腦字體（ttf, otf），產品今年二月已經面世*。我剛買了一套「李漢港楷」標準版，馬上製作了幾個常用的 sticker，在WhatsApp上獨家使用！  

每個城市都有代表她的的一種視角印象，而街景就是組成這種印象的主要成分。「李漢港楷」代表的正是香港獨特的視角印象。 我對台灣、大陸城市也有同樣的印象。台灣的招牌字體也是楷書字體，據說大多出自劉元祥先生的手筆。幾年前在台北偶遇一位書店老闆，從他手中買下了一套絕版的劉元祥字彙，留作參考。李漢和劉元祥的字體，分別代表兩個地區的城市印象，兩款字體皆以顏體為藍本，端正厚重、不花不巧，對招牌背後的寶號甚有象徵意義。至於大陸城市，腦海中的印象是仿毛體寫成的政治標語，不同年代有不同口號，「为人民服务」、「和平、民主、团结」、「中华民族伟大复兴」等等，近幾年大城小鎮都掛滿電腦字體印製的「高举 XJPxxxxxxxxx 理论的伟大旗帜」的巨型橫額！

2022年4月28日

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*https://www.leehonhk.store/aboutstore

How likely you have a friend already infected with Omicron if you live in Hong Kong?

The official infected number in the fifth wave of Covid in Hong Kong so far is around 1.2 million, out of the total population of 7.5 million. So, 16% of our population have got infected with Omicron, and 84% not yet infected. This means the probability that any particular person in Hong Kong has got infected is 0.16. Let's assume this is the case.

Suppose you have N friends. The question is how likely at least one of your friends is among the 1.2 million. A shortcut to finding the answer is to first consider the complementary question of how likely none of your friends has got infected, and that's simply 0.84^N.

The complement of this probability is exactly the probability of having at least one of your friends infected, which is 1 – 0.84^N.

So, if you have 10 friends, i.e., N = 10, you have 82.5% chance of having at least one of your friends infected. If you have 20 friends, it's 96.94% chance, and if you have 40 friends, 99.9%. On average, each person has around 150 contacts on her or his phone book, according to Dunbar's number. That means the chance is 1.

April 24, 2022