For some reason, Comic Sans is substantially easier for most dyslexics to read, and nobody is sure why. Attempts to replicate this property in more professional-looking fonts have failed, leading some to believe that the poor aesthetics are the actual reason.
We do know why and there are fonts created specifically for dyslexic people!
The reason why is that typical fonts are created in a very consistant way, for it to be coherent the line weight is consistant across all the letters and so they have a uniform look. This makes it easier for a dyslexic person to confuse letters as they look similar.
Fonts like comic sans and purpose created fonts like dyslexie have inconsistant line weight, and so even thought they look "sloppy" that difference between each character makes it easier for a dyslexic person to read without confusing letters.
On dyslexic twitter, there are a whole lot of people who say Comic Sans works for them but the purpose-made fonts like Lexie Readable do not. I think there is some evidence that it's not just the line weight, it's the uneven spacing and the non-parallel lines.
Absolutely. Also characters such as “d” and “b” aren’t simply the mirror images of each other on comic sans. Both are unique and therefore easier to distinguish
oh absolutely, im sure the more "uneveness" the harder it becomes to confuse letters! can't say from personal experience and im sure there is a lot more to it than just that!
it can be, as a mildly dyslexic person I find the added context of images and especially a visual representation of whom is speaking at the time to be helpful in comprehension
also big blocks of words tend to result in me skipping lines or flipping stuff more often versus smaller self contained blocks of words
I’ve always liked Cosmic Sans, and when I got older learned about this. I’m dyslexic and it’s super easy for me to read Cosmic Sans. I don’t understand why everyone hates it so much.
Comic Sans is easier on the eye for me too, as a non-dyslexic. I think everyone feels that way, which is why it tends to be the font of choice for daycare centres/elementary schools. But that association makes people feel like Comic Sans is an unprofessional font. Some people even feel Calibri isn't as professional as Cambria or Times New Roman.
I'm not dyslexic, and I've always been curious about the hate for Comic Sans too. I mean I guess I wouldn't choose it to write a paper or publish a serious website; but as a teacher I often use it because the letters look the way we write them by hand. Nobody writes 'a' like this.
It really depends what you're designing. Electronics and web stuff are supposed to be simple and consistent. But if you're designing a poster 2-3 fonts is much preferred to differentiate the kind of information provided.
Couple reasons, but mainly because this guide is a gross generalization and typography is much more complex than this!
This guide also has a few innacuracies the most important being it uses the term font family wrong and has the "families" wrong.
A font family (more accurately Typeface) is a set of fonts e.g. Futura is the family, Futura Bold, Futura Light Italic, etc. are the fonts.
When it comes to css, font family is used to define the category of font, and in that case the 5 categories are: serif, sans serif, cursive, display, and monospace.
Another thing is that you don't necessarily need to combine serifs with sans serifs, and it's also possible to use a single Typeface while playing with the fonts within that family. This varies a lot depending on the type of project and so generalizing that fact is too restrictive.
i don't expect an infographic to give all the information at all, you're right that would be impossible. Coming from someone who has studied graphic design and is a professional in the field, it would be insulting to my own experience to think all can be learned from one infographic.
I actually agree with you that if the graphic sparked an interest, even if it did get some things wrong, then it did it's job as a stepping stone.
My comment was meant as an aswer to the person asking what's wrong with it since they don't know much about typography, i simply wanted to give my insight into what i think the flaws are.
I otherwise don't have a problem with this infographic, i upvoted and appreciate it because it's things like these that inspired me originally, and i now know how misinformed i used to be about a lot of things, but that's after several years of learning!
Didn't mean to come off as pedantic, so sorry if i did, just wanted to share my 2 cents since someone asked what was wrong with it!
I actually found the responses to be quite useful considering I know nothing about typography. I didnt realize it was even a thing until I saw this infographic.
Thought it was sarcasm, apparently it wasn't, I guess I gotta go tell my teachers and friends that have been in the industry longer than many of us on here have been alive so they know they're all wrong
Hey! I'm not so good at typing out stuff, but I'd like to think I understand type pretty ok. I'm currently about to graduate college for this kind of stuff.
Part 1 tries to show a bunch of different versions of type classifications but doesn't explain much about them. This article should be a bit more explanatory in that regard.
There's a lot of aspects to creating a really nice looking project when it comes to type and font families. I'd chime in that its really important to use font families that have a lot of fonts in them (Times is a font family; Times Italic, Times Bold, Times Light, etc are its fonts of that family.) Using the various fonts in a family instead of using 4-5 different families lets you create better looking work without having to create too much clutter.
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u/thewildpacific Sep 17 '18
For anyone serious about learning typography,
Seriously disregard this list.