fine art identity font for dyslexia

Font for Dyslexia

For someone suffering from dyslexia, reading is already a difficult task, but the font of the text can make things a lot harder for the person. That is why the Dutch designer Christian Boer created a dyslexic friendly font. As someone living with dyslexia, Christian Boer wanted to create an readable typeface called Dyslexie that was specifically designed to help others like himself with dyslexia.

Christian Boer is a graphic designer. He first developed the Dyslexie typeface at Utrecht Art Academy when he was writing his final thesis project. A dyslexic himself, Christian set out to create a font that would make reading a less strenuous task. After completion, the revolutionary font immediately became noticed among the dyslexic community and in the international media.

When talking about more traditional typefaces that aren't designed for dyslexia, Christian Boer said, “Traditional fonts are designed solely from an aesthetic point of view, 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.”

Dyslexie is designed to make reading clearer and more enjoyable for people with dyslexia. Although it looks like a traditional typeface, Dyslexie uses heavy base lines, alternates larger openings, stick and tail lengths, and semicursive slants to make sure that each character has a unique and more easily recognisable form.

The main problem with the western alphabet is the similarity within the letters. What people with dyslexia tend to do is rotate the letters. For example; tuning n into a u or rotate a p into a d. Another common mistake is reverted or flipping letters round. Common examples are b and d, or p and q. With such similarities in the traditional alphabet, it is easy to see how someone with dyslexia could find it difficult to read plain text. Taking the normal letters from the alphabet, Boer changes them in such a way that they can't be rotated or flipped, with each one being different and unique.

Boer says that independent studies from the University of Twente and the University of Amsterdam back up his claims that Dyslexie helps both children and adults with dyslexia to read faster and with fewer errors, though the results from Twente were mixed, or statistically insignificant. He has said since making the font available for free to individual users last June, 12,000 people have downloaded it. Dyslexie is also being used, “within companies such as Shell, KLM, Citibank, Pixar, Nintendo, Talpa, as well as various government agencies, many universities and other educational institutions.” The Dyslexie website includes a list of books and e-books available in the font, giving people with dyslexia the chance to enjoy reading.