Fred & Farid Shanghai carved a Moon Festival typeface where every glyph is a moon

Reflect what the full moon represents at the Mid-Autumn Festival — the reunion of family, resilience and togetherness — in a form people can actually use, not another decorative mooncake box.

A downloadable typeface inspired by the moon: each character sits in a circle for the full moon, its changing axis standing for rotation and infinite angles.

MoonFace comprises 26 letters, 10 numbers and 20 punctuation marks, released as a free download so anyone could spend the festival 'conversing in moon'.

No uptake figures reported. The font turned the festival's central image into a working tool anyone could type with.

For the 2021 Mid-Autumn (Moon) Festival — a celebration usually marked with colourful lanterns and mooncakes in ever-more-elaborate boxes — Fred & Farid Shanghai took a different route: the agency designed a new typeface inspired by the shape and rotation of the moon.

MoonFace includes 26 letters, 10 numbers and 20 punctuation marks. Each letter is surrounded by a circle to indicate the complete state of the moon, and the changing axis represents its rotation and 'the infinite angles behind it' — a reminder, in the team's words, that like the moon, we can shift and refresh ourselves in a cyclical process.

The font was released as a free download, inviting people to spend the festival — whose full moon stands for reunion, resilience and togetherness — literally conversing in moon.

The design encodes the festival's meaning — cyclical renewal and togetherness — into the mechanics of the letters themselves.

Making it downloadable turns a studio exercise into a gift: every message typed in MoonFace carries the greeting onward.

It sidesteps the mooncake-box arms race entirely, competing on usefulness rather than packaging.

A cultural moment is best served as a tool: give people something to make with and the festival greeting writes itself.

MoonFace was released for download during the 2021 festival week. No download or usage figures were reported.