Read Regular

Juanjo Seixas writes in about Read Regular, a typeface designed specifically to help people with dyslexia read more effectively.

From the Read Regular Web site:

“Britain has two million severely dyslexic individuals, including some 375,000 schoolchildren. 10% of people using ‘Romance’ languages are coping with a reading difficulty. Dyslexia is a combination of abilities and difficulties that affect the learning process, displaying a wide range of difficulties. Dyslexia can occur despite normal intellectual ability and teaching, and it is independent of socio-economic or language background. The British Dyslexia Association

There has been growing innovation to combat dyslexia, especially for children, in the form of computer software. However, relatively little design research has been done in the area of typography and type design that might support dyslexics. Read Regular is a typeface designed specifically to help people with dyslexia read and write more effectively.

Read Regular aims at preventing a neglect of dyslexia, creating a more confident feeling regarding the problems that occur with dyslexia.

Read Regular is designed with an individual approach for each of the individual characters, creating difference in the actual characters of b & d itself (not mirroring the b to make the d), to create a large character differentiation.

The character shapes are simple and clear, creating consistency. The characters have been stripped down from all unnecessary details — such as a two storey a and a two eyed g.

The individual approach creates striking outlines that make sure that each character stands on its own and works together with its previous or next character. Used in the content of words, sentences and text, the following or the previous character does not try to interfere in its readability process. Ascenders (bdfhkl) and descenders (gjpqy) are long to ensure their legibility. Inner shapes for example within the o, e, a, u and openings in e and g are kept open to prevent from visually closing in. This makes Read Regular a friendly character and a pleasant balance between black and white.”

This story from Wired News talks a bit more about the genesis of the project.