To any sighted person, braille looks like a language masked in encrypted code. It’s incredible, but totally indecipherable. As a result, braille is a companion to our visual language–an add-on for some situations, not a standard that the 285 million visually impaired people around the world can reliably expect to find next to any and all visual text.
Japanese designer Kosuke Takahashi wondered if braille might be something that sighted people could learn to read with their eyes rather than their hands. “It all started from simple question, ‘How can I read braille?’ ‘Does it become a character if I connect the dots?'” Takahashi recounts. “Even though it is the same letter, it felt incongruous that sighted people could not read it.”
Takahashi’s question led to several design experiments which culminated in Braille Neue. It’s a typeface that’s totally legible to anyone with sight, but its skeleton is based upon the bumps of braille. As a result, it can be seen with your eyes or your hands. It’s a font for anyone.
The results speak for themselves, and Takahashi imagines that Braille Neue could usher in a more inclusive era for wayfinding and other graphics in public spaces. “The biggest benefit is that one sign can work for everyone anywhere,” says Takahashi. “Additionally, this typeface does not require braille to take up additional sign space.” He hopes to implement Braille Neue somewhere at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
Of course, Takahashi admits he’s not the first to combine visual letters and braille. Furthermore, it’s worth noting that the use of braille itself is actually on the downturn. The problem is that while society actually supports the implementation of braille on products and in public spaces pretty well, we’re not subsidizing educational programs to teach it. In other words, a typeface like Braille Neue only solves part of the accessibility problem. But perhaps if all of us noticed braille staring us right in the face, every day, we’d sooner recognize its societal value.