“Out of Character, Out of Order” shows how typographic design was employed to negotiate shifting colonial, postcolonial, and Cold War geopolitical dynamics between 1945 and the early 1960s. United Nations agencies and Korean linguists regarded the Sino-Korean form of writing as an impediment to promoting literacy and democracy; and the scholars also viewed it as a remnant of the ancient World Order that subjected Korea to Chinese power. Linguists and educators introduced various typographic solutions, including reorienting Hangeul from vertical to horizontal writing and deconstructing syllabic characters into phonemes. These efforts to follow what they assumed to be the “universal standards” resulted in deformed letters that merely imitated the Roman alphabet without improving the writing system’s legibility or readability. This paper demonstrates how the attempt to break from the old order inadvertently led to a departure from the inherent character of Hangeul, culminating in its swift absorption into a new order.