Reading with dyslexia can be a frustrating experience, but explaining that experience can also be incredibly frustrating. So graphic designer Dan Britton created a typeface designed to replicate his emotional experience as a person with dyslexia reading text.
Over at Dezeen, Britton, who was diagnosed with dyslexia while at university, talks a bit more about his script and the thought behind it. He is not trying to replicate what people who experience dyslexia actually see, but instead trying to show other people what the experience is like:
“You can’t skim through, you have to pick out and read each individual letter, then piece together the words, then sentences and paragraphs,” Britton said. “The whole process of reading is 10 times slower, similar to that of a dyslexic reader, to recreate the embarrassment of reading with everyday type.”
To create that experience, Britton started with the font Helvetica and took away pieces of them, so that the letters are no longer immediately recognizable.
So what’s reading it like? You can head over Dezeen and Britton’s site to see text printed in the typeface. Personally, I was able to read the text, but I wanted to stop reading it pretty quickly. It’s a headache — as it should be.
Dan Britton’s typeface recreates the frustration of reading with dyslexia [Dezeen]
