Alice's Adventures in a Dyslexic Wonderland:
An edition printed in a font that simulates Dyslexia
By Lewis Carroll
First edition, 2015. Illustrations by John Tenniel. Portlaoise: Evertype. ISBN 978-1-78201-129-3 (paperback), price: €12.95, £10.95, $15.95.Click on the book cover on the right to order this book from Amazon.co.uk!
Or if you are in North America, order the book from Amazon.com!
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The main problem with dyslexia is that it is greatly misunderstood. Many people have no real understanding of the condition and much of the existing literature is very basic. Even the government agencies that aim to develop awareness tend to create confusion. In 2013, I initiated a project at the London College of Communication to recreate the feeling of reading with dyslexia—to try and put someone else in our shoes and instil a sense of empathy between non-dyslexics and dyslexics. To accomplish this, I designed a typeface that would be almost illegible and slow down the reading pace of a non-dyslexic person to the speed of a dyslexic, recreating the frustration and embarrassment of reading with the condition. My typeface doesn’t simulate letters jumping around on the page or anything like that—it just breaks the reading time of a non-dyslexic down to the speed of a dyslexic. When I first used the typeface I was happy with it. I showed it to a few friends and their reaction—generally “Ahh, I get it now”—was deeply satisfying. After so many years of trying to explain myself, I found that a simple poster had done the work for me. People were finally getting it. My project was launched in May 2013, but as time went on it got noticed. There were articles in the Daily Mirror1 and on CNN2 in June 2015, and another in the Daily Mail3 in September 2015. And these were linked to and modified by a variety of other venues, all of them clocking up tens of thousands of views. As it stands, my project is still gaining media attention and I have been getting more and more requests for information: “How can one overcome dyslexia?” “How do you deal with it?” “What is it?” I have always thought my design project was a strong piece of work but I had no idea it would receive so much attention in such short time. It came as a great surprise to me, then, when Michael Everson approached me with the idea of publishing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in a font designed according to the principles I used in my project. Perhaps it too will help to spread the message!
Daniel Britton |
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