In reading Swedz, one of the things that stuck out the most to me was use of typography to convey a message. I have several questions and possible final project topics that jump from this point.
- Why do some typography’s have such a bad reputation? Comic Sans for example. A year ago or so, Bill Nye had this big debate with some Christian leader about the big bang, our species’ origins, etc. During that debate, Nye used Comic Sans for the written information on his slides. The internet was in an uproar, hating on the font and bashing Nye for choosing it. However, someone commented that Nye had used Comic Sans because it was a font that people with dyslexia could easily read. If that’s the case, why does this font get treated so poorly?
- Following up on my first possible topic, I wonder if the cultural feeling toward Comic Sans actually functions as a power play against people with dyslexia. Is the negative opinion actually a side-effect of social exclusion?
- Finally, after thinking about typography and dyslexia, I was reminded of an article I read a long time ago about a new typeface someone was creating to help dyslexics read more easily. The font added weight in certain places on different letters, and certain letters were tilted to distinguish them from others. This really intrigues me. I think it would be really interesting to see if there are different technologies out there that help people who have trouble gaining literacy due to a learning disability. I’ve also seen a program that changes the color of each line of text to make it easier to remember where you are– could this help people struggling to gain literacy? I would love to look closely at the programming and type-based strides that have been made to help these individuals; I think it could also be beneficial to interview the staff at the DePaul center for disabilities, and see what techniques and technology they use to help their students with reading and writing.
Of these three, I am most interested by the third. I would love to explore how technology helps individuals who might struggle with literacy due to learning disabilities, and perhaps see how those technologies could be incorporated more widely across the university.
