I was blown away a few years back when I read about the OpenDyslexic font here in the OPLIN 4cast. It fascinated me how making the letters “bottom heavy” would help prevent the letters from “flipping” or “swapping” as they tend to do for readers with dyslexia. The story resonated with my bottomless fascination with fonts which I rarely get to indulge. (There are design rules about how many fonts you can use on a single page, and I’m a stickler for them. Be warned.)
In the past few weeks, my feed reader has gathered up a few other interesting stories about fonts. Check out some of the different ways a font can engage the brain, and explore what’s involved in creating a custom font, whether for your own amusement or to preserve a folk art legacy.
- Can’t Remember What You Read? Blame Font, Not Forgetfulness (Wired) “One study found that students recalled 57 percent of what they read in Sans Forgetica, compared with 50 percent of the material in Arial, a significant difference.”
- Get Over Yourself and Start Writing in Comic Sans [Lifehacker] “If you’re struggling with writer’s block or overly nitpicky self-editing, try setting your word processor’s default font to Comic Sans.”
- How do you preserve beloved New Orleans folk art? A Web font, of course [Ars Technica] “For over 42 years, Lester Carey had been hand-lettering and hand painting signs across New Orleans… His work, evolved into a unique part of the city’s visual language.”
- One of Microsoft’s coolest releases this year had nothing to do with Windows or Office — it lets you make a font from your handwriting [CNBC] “The app generates TrueType fonts, which can be used in various applications like Word on Windows and Mac computers.”
From the Ohio Web Library:
- Helbig, Koren. “Homeless Fonts.” New Internationalist, no. 476, Oct. 2014, p. 8.
- Arbes, Ross. “FONTGATE.” New Yorker, vol. 93, no. 22, July 2017, p. 20.
- Roshell, John. “Creating a Font for Apps and Games with Glyphs.” Lynda.com, Sept. 6, 2017.
