Text surrounds us everyday. Whereas a large majority has no problems reading and understanding written text, this is not the reality for everyone. There are actually many ways for fonts to be inclusive: Some typefaces come with enhanced readability for people with dyslexia or sight problems. However, since its introduction to the public, Braille has established itself to be the most important font for visually impaired people. 

Night writing and the origin of Braille

The man behind this font is Louis Braille, who was blind himself and created the font in 1825. The origin of Braille however, lies in Charles Barbier‘s Night writing. As a soldier in Napoleon‘s army he developed a tactile writing system that allowed soldiers to communicate safely during the night.

Louis Braille took this idea and refined it: Instead of twelve dots, his writing system used six.

The design of Braille

While common print fonts can be used with parameters such as font size in mind, this is simply not possible with Braille. For Braille to work perfectly it needs to fit under the reader‘s fingertips.

This allows readers to quickly move from one letter to the next. In Braille, every distance, no matter if in or between cells, is defined. This is crucial for Braille readability since uneven spacing, too little or too much spacing can make it harder or even impossible to read Braille.

This strict standardization leaves little room for design variations, since Braille always has to follow the format guidelines of each country.

There are no such things such as capital letters, bold or italic fonts. Instead, symbols are added before and after the text to indicate a change in type. However, within these guidelines there is no limit to creativity. Like common text, Braille has levels of headings, a variety of text elements, footnotes, captions and much more.

Braille alternatives

Besides Braille there are also other tactile typographies that were created for visually impaired readers.

Just ten years after Braille the Boston Line Typeface was developed. This approach stemmed from the Roman alphabet with the ulterior motive of being readable to both sighted and blind people. 

The same idea applies to the Moon System of Embossed Reading, which used simplified symbols based on the Latin script.

Why Braille became standard

However these typefaces came with the issue that they were too challenging and complex. The blind community ultimately rejected these alternatives, since these typefaces did not consider their needs. 

Nonetheless, supporters of the Moon writing argue that it is easier to use. This is mostly the case for people that have acquired a visual impairment later in life and are familiar with common letters.

New concepts

Over the past few years different design studios, graphic designers have experimented with tactile fonts: From works that play with the colors and shapes of the dots and thus explore the visual side of Braille to new writing systems.