My name is Katie Lee and I'm a graphic design student at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio; caffeine addict and lover of type. This blog documents the progress of my six-month long senior capstone project from concept to conclusion. Read my project statement here.
A crash course in drawing type and using programs such as FontForge, TypeTool, FontCreator, and FontLab Studio.
Can Braille be faster than QWERTY? App developer thinks so
How cool is this? My mom sent me a link to this story about an app that makes typing braille on an iPhone extremely easy, so there’s no need for really expensive or cumbersome equipment. The developer claims that it could even be a faster way of typing for people with normal eyesight who use QWERTY.
Smartphones are generally pretty good at reading material on their screens to people who have vision problems, he said, but it’s usually difficult to enter text on the devices.
Creating Accessible Print Design Guidelines by Lighthouse International
As I was going through piles of statistics about vision impairment, I began to make this little graph for myself to see where the biggest problems were surfacing. I started to see that although you can experience vision problems at any age, the majority of the American population affected is 40 or older. Age-related vision problems begin to surface around that time, and statistics show that as American age, they are more likely to develop a vision problem or have an existing vision problem worsen.
Dyslexie font designed to help dyslexics read, write
Kristin showed me this article about a font that was developed for dyslexics. Although it doesn’t pertain to my capstone directly, it’s a great example of how a typeface can be designed to overcome obstacles.
In order from worst to best:
- Bodoni Book
- Times Roman
- Garamond Semibold
- Century Schoolbook
- Glypha Roman
- Futura Heavy
- Helvetica Bold
- Univers 65
- Frutiger Bold
- Syntax Bold
“Even though many typefaces meet the requirements of the ADA, they may not all function well with the aging eye. In general, sans serif faces appear to be the most readable, due to their larger x-heights and consistent stroke widths. Typographic designers must undertake a more comprehensive study of this subject and develop typefaces that work well with the common vision problems of the aging population. It seems clear that there is an opportunity for progress in this area of research.”
(Source: aiga.org)
An analysis of the previous examples shows that the following visual properties could be considered beneficial for typefaces that might be viewed by older viewers:
- Consistent stroke widths
- Open counterforms
- Pronounced ascenders and descenders
- Wider horizontal proportions
- More distinct forms for each character (such as tails on the lowercase letters “t” and “j”)
- Extended horizontal strokes for certain letterforms (such as the arm of the lowercase letter “r” or the crossbar of the lowercase letter “t”)
(Source: aiga.org)
