APA Style. Accessible Typography. American Psychological Association. Accessed Feb
23 2021. Link.
APA, the “author”, is the American Psychological Association responsible for the commonly used APA writing guidelines, in addition to many other contributions to the field of Psychology and English.
This source was surprisingly insightful regarding various misunderstandings that even I — someone who suffers from accessibility issues regarding my adhd and its negative interaction with various typefaces — believed. For instance, the myth that essentially created my motivation for this project — that serif fonts are inaccessible. That stated, however, the failing of this article in my opinion is that it primarily if not solely addresses typography from the reading perspective, not the writing perspective. For instance, it talks at length about the accessibility provided by screen readers, however — while this is a fantastic tool for many — this won’t assist me or many like me when attempting to write in a specific typeface for an assignment. That quarrel aside, there were many highly valuable notes about factors other than just typeface that are important for accessible typography design, “including size, color, justification, letter spacing, word spacing, line spacing, character thickness, screen resolution, print readiness, and other audience and media issues.”
Typography For Lawyers. A brief history of Times New Roman. Accessed Feb 22 2021.
Link.
Typography For Lawyers (2nd Edition) is a resource printed by Brian A. Garner (A Lawyer and Writer) and Matthew Butteric (An American Typographer). It was created to attempt to improve the state of typography within the legal system.
While this source is brief, I investigated this source in attempts to find out why Times New Roman (hereafter referred to as “TNR”) is such a universal standard for typography. It was an interesting read for sure, like learning the history of why the font is thinner than other fonts due to its daily newspaper conception. That said, I really wish this short article continued as it concluded abruptly right as it began to address my learning objective; ending on a paragraph about to NOT USE IT if you’re given the choice, then not explaining why. Oh well.
Williams, Gareth Ford. A Guide to Understanding What Makes a Typeface Accessible.
UX Collective. Aug 14. 2020. Accessed Feb 22 2021. Link.
Gareth Ford Williams is the head of UX design at the BBC, with a stated speciality and focus on User Accessibility and “Universality”.
This source was an incredibly useful read as — while I am familiar with many accessibility issues within typography — this covered a wide range of issues on a level deeper than simply “Serifs are bad” or “Serifs are good” — speaking to specific ways that various ability differences interpret various assets of a typeface. This source breaks down many of these factors through explanation of the development of one of their own typefaces, BBC Reith and Qalam, wherein they used neuroscientists and psychologists to vet the accessibility of the typeface at every step.
Wood, Jennifer M. Times New Roman is Bad for your Career. MentalFloss. January 22
2016. Accessed Feb 24 2021. Link.
Jennifer M. Wood appears to be a bit informal of a source, but is a lead editor at MentalFloss, and has previously been a writer for WIRED, Rolling Stone, and more.
This article, while comparatively informal, was wildly interesting and brings up the longitude of the debate I hope to focus on: Is Times New Roman an innately poor choice to standardize? It references a variety of studies that show that a résumé written in Times New Roman is more likely to be ignored, in addition to general other typography styles that will get ignored or represent oneself poorly. While not entirely relevant to my topic ideal, the studies it referenced may be.
