i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                 i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

e. e. cummings © 1952

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hyperlegible dyslexic

tuesday, 26 october 2021

this page consolidates the various font customizations applied to the Iosevka font used on this site, my Kindle and computers. Essentially, the configuration customizations elucidated in the various articles are relisted here in this single source for ease of reference and currency.

Three major influences occurred to my original Iosevka font settings over a matter of months after years of usage with my Futura like character variant configuration on my computers for coding..

  • discovery of the Atkinson Hyperlegible Font. This font’s character variants, save for a few characters—notably the substituted “tailed” capital Q and some more “open” symbols—was adopted for its “legibility” and outright elegance.
  • usage on my Kindle Oasis as an e-reader font. i am an exclusive consumer of books on the e-reader. It is all about personalization of content format, fonts playing an important part of that. The Monolegible emulation of the Atkinson font further enhanced legibility (IMO) as a monospaced font.
  • investigation of dyslexic fonts. A subreddit thread invited me to investigate dyslexic fonts more closely and prompted adoption of further changes to the Atkinson font character variants—notably the lower case b d and u—to create the Monolexic font.

The end result of these cumulative changes have been so effective in maximizing legibility, i have incorporated them into my daily source code and desktop font.

exhibit

Monolexic

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ) ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( , . / ; ' [ ] \ ` - = < > ? : " { } | ~ _ +

✱  ✱  ✱

the Atkinson lower case curly tailed q renders with a slightly lower x-height at very small font sizes. The frequency of the letter is such that it should go largely unnoticed—but it can be discerned on 300 PPI e-ink and other high resolution displays if one looks for it.

The build script default replaces the curly tailed q (now a command line option) with the less exaggerated tailed q whose descender does not overlap into the adjacent character cell. It is uncertain whether this is a specific OS font rendering or font specification issue—but it does occur on Linux based platforms.

dyslexic considerations

the font set adopts the character variants of the Atkinson Hyperlegible Font with character variant deviations where necessary to enhance dyslexic character recognition, notably..

  • the toothed lower case b and d are replaced with the toothless-corner b and tailed-serifless d to avoid mirroring each other and the lower case p;
  • the toothed lower case u is replaced with the toothless-rounded u to avoid mirroring the lower case n. This change is surprisingly effective in opening up words containing it;
  • the crossed capital Q is replaced with the detached-tailed Q to be more clearly defined within its rectangular monospaced cell.

Additionally, some symbols are replaced with more open glyphs drawn with fewer strokes, notably the..

  • ampersand
  • at
  • dollar
  • percent

Dyslexic reading comprehension is further enhanced with..

  • the uniform visual cadence of monospaced characters;
  • increased word separation by expanding the Space character width;
  • the high x-height of Iosevka which improves lower case recognition;
  • added line height (leading) to ease visual scanning of text.

✱  ✱  ✱

the character variant deviations from the Atkinson Hyperlegible Font not only aid dyslexic character recognition but impart a unique and beautiful look to the font set..

  • the toothless lower case b with its rounded script like form and more open side space;
  • the tailed lower case d echoing the rhythmic right sided vertical stroke and tail of the l and t;
  • the toothless lower case u echoing the symmetry of its capital with more open side space;
  • the detached-tailed capital Q with its distinctive openness within its narrower monospaced cell width (compared to the Atkinson font).

Overall, the lower case characters hold their geometric shape in contrast to the more vertical cell shape of the capitals—a pleasing contrast that maintains a visual monospaced cadence without sacrificing legibility—or too much content density to its proportional counterpart.

The result is a unique dyslexic focused font housed in a clean geometric sans serif design. Not as radical as some typefaces specifically targeting dyslexia.. but perhaps more accessible for a wider audience. And certainly more beautiful to my eyes. YMMV.

✱  ✱  ✱

in contrast to the Atkinson font, the OpenDyslexic font uses the serifless capital I. Employing this character variant aligns nicely with my bias towards minimal stroke glyphs—echoes of two iconic fonts, Helvetica and Futura— adding a more linear emphasis to the typeface with a subtly different visual “feel”.

Combined with the symmetry and air of the toothless lower case u, it creates a font with a uniquely balanced look—feeling both geometric and warm—whilst retaining high legibility and dyslexic focus. Beauty in the eye of the beholder—two typefaces for varying visual tastes and moods.

configuration

The toml file configuration to generate the hyperlegible and dyslexic character font variants..

[buildPlans.iosevka.variants] # inherits = "" # defaults [buildplans.iosevka.variants.design] capital-d = "more-rounded-serifless" # D capital-g = "toothed-serifless-hooked" # G capital-i = 'short-serifed' # I capital-j = "serifless" # J capital-k = "straight-serifless" # K capital-m = "flat-bottom" # M capital-q = "detached-tailed" # Q capital-w = "straight-flat-top" # W a = "double-storey-serifless" b = 'toothless-corner' d = "tailed-serifless" e = "flat-crossbar" f = "flat-hook-crossbar-at-x-height" i = "hooky" j = "flat-hook-serifless" k = "straight-serifless" l = "flat-tailed" q = "diagonal-tailed" # fontforge mod r = "compact" t = "flat-hook-short-neck2" u = 'toothless-rounded' w = "straight-flat-top" y = "straight-turn" zero = "reverse-slashed" # 0 one = "nobase-flat-top-serif" # 1 two = "straight-neck" # 2 four = "closed" # 4 five = "oblique-upper-left-bar" # 5 six = "closed-contour" # 6 eight = "two-circles" # 8 brace = "straight" # {} ampersand = "upper-open" # & asterisk = "penta-high" # * at = "short" # @ cyrl-capital-ka = "symmetric-touching-serifless" # К cyrl-ka = "symmetric-touching-serifless" # к dollar = "through" # $ eszet = "sulzbacher" # ß long-s = "flat-hook" # ſ lower-iota = "flat-tailed" # ι lower-lambda = "straight-turn" # λ number-sign = "upright" paragraph-sign = "low" # ¶ # percent = "rings-continuous-slash" percent = "dots" # % question = "smooth" # ? ...

settings

configuration settings for the various source code and e-reader fonts defined in the build script are..

font spacing shape sb leading space
source code term 600 0.85 1.25 —
markdown text term 600 0.8 2 —
monolegible term 576 0.7 1.4185 2x
quasilegible quasi-proportional 576 0.75 1.25 2x
monolexic term 600 0.65 1.4185 2x

The big change is the application of the expanded shape cell width to the source code font—common source code programming fonts define condensed or half cell width characters to maximize the monospaced character density or content on displays. Beauty over form in this instance—a luxury afforded by today’s wider computer displays where content density is a non-issue. In practice, my experience has been that the added breathing room between characters plus their more geometric shapes produces a clarity which allows working one font size smaller, ultimately recovering the lost content density with a more pleasing font set rendering—a biased opinion, of course. YMMV.

Side bearing (sb) is a matter of personal preference and has been fine tuned over time. The tighter the side bearing, the more geometric the circular letters, the less air between adjacent characters—so it is a balance of personal aesthetics and readability. Line height (leading) alters the visual impact of side bearing allowing tighter spacing (at least pour moi, hence, the different settings for monospaced source code and markdown text).

Resolution also affects the choice of side bearing. The greater font clarity of e-readers allows tighter side bearing, the space between adjacent characters being so much clearer—looking airier in comparison to computer monitor displays. Source code’s often heavy use of acronyms appears to benefit from a more relaxed side bearing to aid absorbing its more abstract content density—again, a personal preference.

The word focus gained by the enhanced spacing of the Monolexic font has been applied to the other e-reader fonts. A slightly tighter shape cell width is used for the Monolegible font with 1.5x spacing—to maintain overall visual columnar alignment. The Quasilegible font applies a similar cell shape with 1.66x spacing—taking into account the visual density of the proportional character cell widths.

fontforge

is used to complete the fonts..

  • to add a curly tailed lower case q;
  • for e-reader fonts, to widen the word spacing (by lengthening the Space character cell width);
  • for e-reader fonts, doubling the cell width of the Emdash and Ellipsis monospaced characters—retaining the monospaced cell grid of the displayed page.

Refer to the above referenced site links to review the fontforge scripting gymnastics.

history

Changes to fonts since article postings..

  • 1.66x space width to quasi-proportional font
  • differentiation of the cyrillic Ka character from K (affects source code font)
  • widen e-reader monospaced and proportional Space character
  • open side bearing on monospaced e-reader fonts
  • add serifless capital I to Monolegible, Quasilegible and Monolexic font variants—build script defaults family name as ifamily
  • standardize e-reader fonts to 2x space width
  • at very small point sizes the lower case curly tailed q renders with a diminished x-height. The tailed q is now the default for this use case. The OneDrive repos contain the curly tailed q builds for general usage
  • add OpenDyslexic toothless-corner-serifless-hooked capital G to ifamily e-reader fonts

files

Of course, you are encouraged to further tweak these fonts to suit your own pair of “eyes”. The provided scripts should be modifiable to work on most computers by paying attention to and altering the relevant path references. Depending on one’s font configuration, npm, nerd-fonts, fontforge and, of course, iosevka need to be installed.

Check out the *Iosevka customization page—a complete build configuration file sample can be produced interactively!

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hyperlegible dyslexiccolophonlife listshadows and lightsearching this sitethe darnedest thingthe only thing i knowtruth or diethe miraculous thingthe storyabout healinghealing

sunday, 25 july 2021

with the focus on font type legibility satisfied (on my desktops, e-readers and web site), it was time to address the resultant aesthetic of this site.

So, with some further CSS tweaking and server side magic.. a big face lift!

First and foremost, the former outdented lower case lead in word following all headings—a quirky distinction this site has had from its inception as a stylistic signature—becomes paragraph indented with the leading three first words text transformed to X height upper case courtesy of the site’s Passenger/Nginx application <span></span> insertion and corresponding CSS, producing a less formal presentation—softening in my old age i guess. Paragraph spacing has also been tightened a smidgen in the direction of formatting convention—but not quite.

Next, the glaring bold width and extreme (default) contrast of bold highlights—there being only the regular and bold font weights available with the Atkinson Hyperlegible Font—has been replaced again with an X height all caps rendering and a lower contrast font colour. The X height reduces the stroke width and the font color localizes the emphasis where it belongs (imo), in the content.

Finally, italic highlights—which always look larger with their oblique elongated strokes (correctable with a CSS font size adjustment), to my eyes, just seem visually out of place embedded between words (which i suppose is the highlight intent.. not a big fan of italics obviously!)—get a similar treatment, sans the font weight and color. Not to be confused with but the same as the capitalized lead in words.

All of this serves to soften the default emphasis of HTML character highlighting on the content so one’s eyes are not distracted by visual “shouting”. (But really, only serves my aesthetic.. which is quite possibly very contrary)! In other words, easy on the eyes, hopefully friendlier and more welcoming.. but unexciting. No one has ever accused me of being too colourful. :)

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