This New Font Shows You What It’s Like To Read With Dyslexia

Most fonts and typefaces are designed to give your words a little extra character, or at least make them easy to read. But FastCompany reports there's one that does the opposite — for a good cause. Created by design student Daniel Britton, the new font aims to increase awareness of dyslexia by showing others what it's like to have the condition. Using the classic Helvetica as a starting point, Britton removed about 40% of each letter. This leaves the basic shell of each character, but takes out most of the defining bits. So, you may be able to pick out a letter here and there, but your overall reading comprehension goes way down. This new font comes just a few months after the introduction of a typeface called Dyslexie, which was designed specifically to help those with dyslexia. Designed by Christian Boer, who has dyslexia himself, Dyslexie's characters are heavier on the bottom to keep readers from flipping them over, and letters that look similar are slightly italicized to prevent confusion. Britton, who was also recently diagnosed with dyslexia, says he isn't necessarily trying to recreate the exact visual experience of having the learning disorder. Instead, it's more about feeling the frustration of knowing you're not an idiot, but still having trouble with the words on the page. Britton tells FastCo he's already made an impact on his classmates — and gotten a job replacing current dyslexia awareness ads in the U.K. Although the font isn't available for download yet, you can check out what it looks like below (in red).