Verdana: there is an alternative!
By Fiona Humberstone, 9th Jun 2009
I'm well known for my disparaging views on the use of Verdana, Arial and Times New Roman for printed marketing literature. The fact is that they are standard, common fonts that make your business literature look un-designed and un-inspiring. Now most people will accept that there are better fonts than Times and Arial, but the most common retorts I get when it comes to Verdana are "but I have to use it, it's easy for dyslexics to read".
I've done some poking around and am delighted to share the Dyslexia foundation's recommendations for fonts. The general rule is that you should always use a Sans Serif font (like Arial or Verdana) because they're easier for dyslexics to read.
Here are their recommended fonts: Read Regular, Lexica Regular, Tiresias, Sassoon, Myriad Pro and Trebuchet. And
here's a link to the full article. Now let's banish Verdana in print!
Tagged as in Graphic Design
There’s an interesting difference in the recommendations from the RNIB and the Dyslexia Foundation.
The RNIB constantly push the use of Arial. It’s debatable whether this is on the grounds of it being legible, or simply that it is familiar because, well, because it’s free and everyone uses it.
Interesting then that the Dyslexia Foundation suggest a range of fonts that are visually quite different from each other.
How interesting. The RNIB is a charity for partially sighted and the blind (embarrassingly I just had to look that up
. Their website, along with dyslexia.com is not a shining beacon of great design so I’m reading through their “good design” section with a slight twinge of cynicism.
As an information designer Robert, I imagine you work quite closely with these organisations. Do you use Verdana and Arial in your print work? Or do you manage to use something nicer?
However, some good points on font size and typeface here:
http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_printdesign.hcsp
I think you’re right in terms of everyone uses Arial and Verdana because they’re free. And I think from a designer’s point of view, that’s precisely why we dislike them. They are too common, too boring and often used unimaginatively which makes them see dull and undesigned.
I standardly use fonts that look like Arial (to the untrained eye) in my work but try and go for something more elegant like Univers or Akzidenz, as much for the feeling of a sneaky moral victory against the use of Arial.
In a sense I’m fortunate that the work I do tends to be visually ‘simple’ so creating ‘legibile’ design is a simple process. The mistake that designers in general make, is to assume that legible text is readable text, some thing I’ve griped about before.
Reading is a tiring enough activity for those with ‘good’ eyesight. Therefore, expecting those with visual difficulties to read the same amount of text, at whatever size and in whatever font, is unrealistic.
To make text that’s easy to read for those with visual impairment takes a combination of writing and design. I’m ashamed to say I’ve been involved with projects (but not agreed with) where the solution to providing information for the partially sighted is simply to photocopy it onto A3, regardless of the fact this brings with it a whole new set of problems for the user.
some great points Robert. Thank you for sharing them!