Atkinson Hyperlegible Pro

Important The font repository is now back up, under the name Lexia Ultralegible.

An updated and extended version of Atkinson Hyperlegible.

Table of Contents

• Overview
  • Features
  • Installing
  • Language Support
• Flip the Zero
• Change Log
  • Kern Log
  • Characters and Glyphs
• Contributing
• License

Overview

Atkinson Hyperlegible Pro is an updated and extended version of the original typeface, which was initially designed for The Braille Institute and named after its founder, J. Robert Atkinson. It was specifically designed to improve character recognition and legibility for low-vision readers by incorporating distinctive and unambiguous letterform’s. The typeface was a Winner of Fast Company’s 2019 Innovation By Design Award.

• Four fonts, including two weights (regular, italic, bold, bold italic)
• An additional 88 glyphs supporting 90 languages
• 1,820 total glyphs across all fonts, 455 per font
• Improve legibility and readability for low vision readers
• Updated kerning for visual harmony and readability
• Includes ligatures for fi ff ffi fl ffl
• Alternative reversed number zero 0

Unique Design Features

Designed for low-vision readers, certain letters and numbers can be hard to distinguish from one another. Atkinson Hyperlegible Pro differentiates common misinterpreted letters and numbers using various design techniques: B vs. 8, 1 vs. L vs. l vs. I. Recognizable Footprints: Character boundaries are clearly defined, ensuring understanding across the visual-ability spectrum.

Q vs G, E vs F, p vs q, i vs r, O vs 0

Differentiated letterform’s: Similar letter pairs are differentiated from each other to dramatically increase legibility. Unambiguous Characters: designed to increase legibility and distinction.

ER79jr Vsa36

Exaggerated forms: Shaping of letters is exaggerated to provide better clarity. Opened Counterspace: Open areas of certain letters are expanded to provide greater distinction.

aGbgrpqu Åö8ij%?¡:

Angled spurs and differentiated tails: Increase recognition and define distinctive style. Circular Details: Links to the history of Braille Institute and braille dots.

Installing the Font

• Download the font from this Github repository.
• Extract the file to reveal additional folders inside. Find the Open Type Format (.otf) files for the four Atkinson Hyperlegible Pro fonts (regular, italic, bold, bold italic) inside the “fonts/otf” folder.
• Note: Only the otf files are needed to install the font on a computer.
• On Windows 10: Double-click the font file, then click the “Install” button in the font preview window that opens. The font will be installed. Alternatively, right-click on the file and choose “Install” from the pop-up menu.
• On Mac: Double-click the font file in the Finder, then click “Install Font” in the font preview window that opens. After your Mac validates the font and opens the Font Book app, the font is installed and available for use.

Language Support

Afrikaans Albanian Asu Basque Bemba Bena Breton Catalan Chiga Colognian Cornish Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Embu English Esperanto Estonian Faroese Filipino Finnish French Friulian Galician German Gusii Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Kabuverdianu Kalenjin Kamba Kikuyu Kinyarwanda Latvian Lithuanian Lower Sorbian Luo Luxembourgish Luyia Machame Makhuwa-Meetto Makonde Malagasy Maltese Manx Meru Morisyen North Ndebele Norwegian Bokmål Norwegian Nynorsk Nyankole Oromo Polish Portuguese Quechua Romanian Romansh Rombo Rundi Rwa Samburu Sango Sangu Scottish Gaelic Sena Serbian Shambala Shona Slovak Soga Somali Spanish Swahili Swedish Swiss German Taita Teso Turkish Upper Sorbian Uzbek (Latin) Volapük Vunjo Walser Welsh Western Frisian Zulu.

Flipping the Zero

By default the zero remains with a backslash \ this was done to prevent confusion with the Danish Ø however, when pairing the typeface with a monospace that only supports a forwardslash / zero, this may create a cognitive dissonance problem. On that occasion you might want to flip the zero by adding font-variant-numeric: slashed-zero; to your CSS file.

body {
  font-family: "Atkinson Hyperlegible Pro", "Atkinson Hyperlegible", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
  font-size: 100%;
  font-weight: 400;
  font-variant-numeric: slashed-zero;
}

Change Log

• Added auto hint using FontForge AutoHint tool
• Harmonized curves using FontForge balance tool
• Change curve type from quadratic to cubic
• Fix t with cedilla ţ U+0163 now showing correct glyph

Kern Log

• Kern v w y pairs
• Kern Q and U pairs
• Kern S and T V Y pairs
• Kern K and c d e o g q pairs
• Kern Y and c d e o g q m n p r pairs
• Kern W and c d e o g q m n p r pairs
• Kern V and c d e o g q m n p r pairs
• Kern T and c d e o g q m n p r u v w x y z pairs

Added Characters and Glyphs

• Modifier letter apostrophe ʼ U+02BC
• U with caron Ǔ U+01D3 and ǔ U+01D4
• H with caron Ȟ U+021E and ȟ U+021F
• A with caron Ǎ U+01CD and ǎ U+01CE
• Y with tilde Ỹ U+1EF8 and ỹ U+1EF9
• Y with macron Ȳ U+0232 and ȳ U+0233
• G with caron Ǧ U+01E6 and ǧ U+01E7
• E with tilde Ẽ U+1EBC and ẽ U+1EBD
• O with stroke and acute Ǿ U+01FE and ǿ U+01FF
• Ae with acute Ǽ U+01FC and ǽ U+01FD
• O with breve Ŏ U+014E and ŏ U+014F
• L with middle dot Ŀ U+013F and ŀ U+0140
• I with breve Ĭ U+012C and ĭ U+012D
• I with tilde Ĩ U+0128 and ĩ U+0129
• E with breve Ĕ U+0114 and ĕ U+0115
• Hyphen ‐ U+2010
• U with tilde Ũ U+0168 and ũ U+0169
• U with breve Ŭ U+016C and ŭ U+016D
• S with circumflex Ŝ U+015C and ŝ U+015D
• H with circumflex Ĥ U+0124 and ĥ U+0125
• G with circumflex Ĝ U+011C and ĝ U+011D
• C with circumflex Ĉ U+0108 and ĉ U+0109
• J with circumflex Ĵ U+0134 and ĵ U+0135
• Dottles J ȷ U+0237
• Ligature Ij Ij U+0132 and ij U+0133
• L with acute Ĺ U+0139 and ĺ U+013A
• I with dot above İ U+0130
• O with Macron Ō U+014C and ō U+014D
• R with cedilla Ŗ U+0156 and ŗ U+0157
• T with dot above Ṫ U+1E6A and ṫ U+1E6B
• S with dot above Ṡ U+1E60 and ṡ U+1E61
• P with dot above Ṗ U+1E56 and ṗ U+1E57
• M with dot above Ṁ U+1E40 and ṁ U+1E41
• Y with circumflex Ŷ U+0176 and ŷ U+0177
• Y with grave Ỳ U+1EF2 and ỳ U+1EF3
• W with circumflex Ŵ U+0174 and ŵ U+0175
• W with diaeresis Ẅ U+1E84 and ẅ U+1E85
• W with grave Ẁ U+1E80 and ẁ U+1E81
• W with acute Ẃ U+1E82 and ẃ U+1E83
• F with dot above Ḟ U+1E1E and ḟ U+1E1F
• D with dot above Ḋ U+1E0A and ḋ U+1E0B
• B with dot above Ḃ U+1E02 and ḃ U+1E03
• Dong ₫ U+20AB
• Ligatures for fi ff ffi fl ffl
• Copyleft 🄯 U+1F12F
• Alternative reversed number zero 0

Contributing

Help us improve Atkinson Hyperlegible Pro for everyone, any contribution or feedback is welcome. Before starting any change to this project let me know by submitting an issue or starting a discussion. If you don't know what to contribute there might be a couple of projects that need your help.

License

SIL Open Font License, v1.1. See LICENSE.txt for details.

Learn more at brailleinstitute.org/freefont.