Now we have all heard about different typefaces and Fonts. These are usually used for aesthetic and design purposes, and yes I admit if love FontArt or Typographic design. But this post is not about that. This is all about the use of fonts, about making fonts part of our provision to help people with certain difficulties.
One of those difficulties is Dyslexia. About 5% of all children have dyslexia and thus struggle with reading. These past couple of days a font has been going round the Social media called “Dyslexie”.
Dutch designer Christian Boer created a dyslexic-friendly font to make reading easier for people with dyslexia, like himself.
“Traditional fonts are designed solely from an aesthetic point of view,” Boer writes on his website, “which means they often have characteristics that make characters difficult to recognise for people with dyslexia. Oftentimes, the letters of a word are confused, turned around or jumbled up because they look too similar.”
Designed to make reading clearer and more enjoyable for people with dyslexia, Dyslexie uses heavy base lines, alternating stick and tail lengths, larger openings, and semi cursive slants to ensure that each character has a unique and more easily recognizable form.
Where you might think of ‘Comic Sans’ as a diverse and sometimes overused font, dyslexie promises a lot. According to two independent studies (One by the University of Trente and one by the University of Amsterdam) the font makes a difference for some people.
So as with everything, this might help some people, but not everyone. I would say, have a look at their website and try it out. The home version of this font is available as a free download and you might just like it.
Find them at: http://www.dyslexiefont.com/
Another Open-Source font created is OpenDyslexic, you can download it free of charge at: http://opendyslexic.org/
OpenDyslexic is a new open source font created to increase readability for readers with dyslexia. The typeface includes regular, bold, italic, and bold-italic styles.
