Studio Brief 2 - Typeface Design - Typographic Accessibility

Typographic Accessibility

FS Me is a typeface developed by FontSmith in partnership with the charity Mencap. Its function is to improve the legibility of words for people with learning disabilities and ‘represents the ability within disability’. Legibility is on a scale with some more accessible than others. It is important to know and understand who the end user is when designing a typeface so it is suitable for them.

Based on the information within the accessibility infographic I have adjusted my design to make it more legible and therefore more appropriate for wayfinding. Although the typeface is aimed at a different audience and viewed in a different way some of the principles of legibility in this context are transferable to my own work. In my design, I have converted the tittles to circles rather than the original squares used in Univers. The larger tittles provide more emphasis and make them clearer when reading. I have increased the size of the open counters to improve the distinction of letters (e.g. e and c) at smaller scales as these can often look ‘closed’ when reduced in size or for partially sighted users. Counters within the letters are large to reduce filling at smaller sizes and will be appropriate for viewing at further distances. By looping the tails of certain letters (e.g. y,g,j,l and t) I have created clearer more emphasised letter forms. To create a better distinction between the ‘b’ and ‘d’ I have added a tail to the ‘d’ rather than having a mirror image of the ‘b’ which can be confused. To aid distinction between the ‘l’ and ‘i’ I added a tail to the ‘l’ which has changed its form drastically.