Hangeul is made up of consonants and vowels, and the consonants and vowels combine to make a syllable. When the individual sounds are put together, they faithfully follow the structural order of beginning, middle and final phoneme--the consonants are located at the beginning and final positions, while the vowels are located in the middle. The locations of the middle phonemes, whether they be on the right or on the bottom of the beginning phonemes, are decided upon from the start. Each of these characters structured as such are syllabic units. Hangeul contains structural completeness within each of its characters, as well as reciprocal independence between the phonemes within the characters.
Hangeul is written in different shapes, depending upon if it is written by print or hand. Hangeul fonts have been developed to better express the language and there are even designed works that take the characters as their subject material--these are known as typographies. Typographies making use of Hangeul are creating a new kind of visual culture. They understand the more noteworthy aspects of the Hangeul forming principles and apply them well.
The first of the Hangeul forming principles is that of simplification. The basic consonants and vowels in the Hunminjeongeum have a minimalistic form of extreme brevity. Interesting is the fact that figures such as triangles, circles and rectangles, horizontal, vertical and creased lines, as well as dots can create any and all Hangeul character forms.
The second forming principle is that of stroke addition. All Hangeul characters, centered around the standard character form, follow a simple method of adding strokes onto the standard frame to make aspirated and tensed sounds. In addition, the basic morphemes are balanced and have symmetrical shapes. Such symmetry allows for a visual sense of balance and stability.
The third principle is that of stacked writing within a phonemic unit. The modern era is one in which design is becoming more and more important. While Hangeul is a stacked character system like Chinese, it can also be spread out like the kana system of Japan or the Western alphabet. Through stacked writing, Hangeul is capable of being written horizontally, vertically, and even diagonally, giving a wide scope for variety in design. Hangeul designing, which is especially gaining in popularity in recent times, can be seen as a trend making the most out of the properties of Hangeul, which is well-matched for design styles.