Dr. Zhao Liu is an Associate Professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, working at the intersection of type design, typography, visual communication, and cultural research. Her practice bridges academic research, design education, and applied professional work, with a strong commitment to connecting historical knowledge of writing systems to contemporary typographic practice. In parallel with her academic role, she leads Liu Zhao Studio as Art Director and maintains a long-term collaboration with TypeTogether, engaging with both cultural institutions and industry partners.

Liu's research and design work focus on multilingual typography and the modernization of Chinese typographic systems. She is particularly interested in historical and minority scripts, and in how complex writing traditions can be translated into functional, digital, and widely usable design systems. Her work emphasizes the transformation of scholarly research into practical tools, public communication, and culturally accessible outcomes. She led the design of Google's Noto typefaces for Khitan and Nüshu, contributed to the development of Noto Sans CJK and Noto Serif CJK, and played a key role in advancing the update of the Tangut typeface. Alongside this, she has collaborated with Unicode on the domestic and international standardization of Jianzi musical notation, research that resulted in two invention patents granted in China.

As principal investigator of multiple national-level research projects, Liu has advanced Way of Type: Modernisation of Chinese Typography, a major research initiative and touring exhibition presented across China and internationally. She also served as typography design consultant for the China Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka. Alongside design and research, Liu is deeply engaged in publishing and education, having planned, translated, edited, or proofread numerous typography-related books. Through interdisciplinary and project-based teaching, she actively fosters new approaches that connect cultural heritage, technology, and contemporary visual communication.