Typography Tuesday
Eye charts using letters of the alphabet, designed to test visual acuity and the efficacy of corrective lenses, were introduced in the 1830s. To increase optical distance in the testing room, some charts were designed with reverse letters and viewed through a facing mirror. In the 1860s the Utrecht optometrist Herman Snellen designed the first scientifically reliable charts for testing vision distance using carefully size-adjusted letters based on the typeface Egyptian Paragon. Sans-serif letters, having less visual distraction, were introduced later (Gill Sans Bold has been especially popular with British opticians). In the 1870s Snellen introduced charts with calibrated lines and abstract figures for young or illiterate patients. Eye chart designs all over the world are still based on Snellen's pioneering "optotypes." The economy and clarity demanded by its function gave the eye test charts a typographic formal and modernist elegance. View the captions for descriptions of each chart.
These images are reproduced in ABZ, edited by Julian Rothenstein and Mel Gooding, and published in San Francisco by Chronicle Books in 2003 (an earlier edition was published by Shambhala in 1993 as Alphabets & Other Signs).
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