At Noble Ink we are always looking for ways to not only improve our printing products, but the service our customers provide to their clients. Printing high quality products is our specialty, which not only involves ensuring the product is aesthetically pleasing but readable for all.
In our previous blog post we spoke about the importance of typography and its ability to influence how we absorb visual art, particularly text. We realise in the post we failed to consider how learning disabilities and literacy levels are often overlooked when producing written bodies of work.
Imagine the frustration of words turning upside down and letters swapping when reading text.
Christian Boer, a person living with dyslexia designed a typeface, known as Dyslexie. Research has shown numerous positive outcomes for people living with dyslexia when Dyslexie font is used, such as making reading and learning easier, fewer mistakes and faster reading.
So, what makes Dyslexie different to other typefaces? Everything! All the typeface standards were thrown out the window to create select letters that are easy to identify. Unique changes made to Dyslexie typeface include:
Thick baseline – a clear base line is created by producing letters with a heavy bottom. This helps prevent letters from turning upside down.
Shapes – the shape of letters is slightly adapted to help distinguish them. This helps reduce the turning, mirroring and swapping of letters. In all seriousness, who doesn’t misread b for d on occasion?
Spacing – spacing between letters is greater, making letters easier to identify and avoids crowding.
Extended sticks – some letters have prolonged sticks, which reduces swapping letters when reading.
Capital letters and punctuation – bold is used for capital letters and punctuation, highlighting breaks and sentences.
Incline – letters are subtly inclined to help individualise their characteristics.
Openings – the gap in letters is increased, think about the opening in the letter C. This helps emphasis the shape of different letters.
Letter levels – various levels are emphasised in different letters, which helps to stop letter swapping. For example, the join in the letters v and y are set at different heights.
Height – letter height is lengthened, while the width stays the same. This helps make letters easier to identify.
We have only skimmed the surface in this blog post on making text more reader friendly for people living with a learning disability and we haven’t addressed the broader issue of low literacy levels. If you need assistance to make your documents or products more reader friendly contact us for a collaborative consultation.
For more information on Dyslexie typeface go to https://www.dyslexiefont.com/
