South Korea to Posthumously Honor Font Pioneer Seok Geum-ho with Top Cultural Merit

Seok Geum-ho, founder of Sandoll and creator of over a thousand Korean fonts, will receive the Eungwan Order of Cultural Merit posthumously during the Hangul Day event at Seoul's Sejong Center. The awards also commend Baek Tae-hyeon for three decades of Korean language work in Central Asia and honor several educators and institutions for expanding Hangeul education abroad. Officials said the honors reflect a concerted effort to boost the script's worldwide reach and cultural value.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced that Seok Geum-ho, the late founder of Sandoll who pioneered digital Korean typography and produced more than a thousand distinct fonts, will be posthumously granted the Eungwan Order of Cultural Merit at the national Hangul Day ceremony held at the Sejong Center in Seoul. Baek Tae-hyeon, vice-president of the Korean Institute in Central Asia, will receive the Okgwan Order for three decades of language education and for helping establish Korean universities in Kyrgyzstan.

Additional civilian medals will be presented to Cho Su-jin and Choi Hong-sik for contributions to overseas Korean curricula and phonetic research, respectively. Academic institutions such as Hirosaki University, the Australia National University Korea Institute, the Weekend Korean School of Tashkent, Mykolas Romeris University, and the National University of Singapore also earned commendations for spreading Korean studies. The ministry emphasized that these recognitions support the ongoing global expansion and cultural significance of Hangeul.