psa — pls use neurodivergent / dyslexia friendly fonts and high contrast text vs background color choices for low-vision fans interacting with your fanworks!
aka: making your podfic cover art and / or gifsets & text post memes more widely accessible and viewer friendly
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okay, hey, hi! thanks-in-advance for reading this long post (lol or skipping to the tldr) ₍^. .^₎Ⳋ ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡
so, first of all! i made a canva poster regarding which fonts i consider to be neurodivergent & dyslexia friendly *in my personal opinion* -- it also has examples of text (foreground) vs immediately surrounding background color choices with luminosity contrast ratios that meet minimum WCAG standards for low-vision web users -- btw there's a plain text list of the fonts included and colors used on the poster near the bottom of this post
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so! what do i think makes a font family neurodivergent / dyslexia friendly and / or accessible to low-vision persons?
i think a font is visually accessible if it passes the tests of:
no-exact-mirror-letters [ b d p q ]
distinguishable-vertical-bar-characters [ 1 I l i ]
and also very very importantly: i find it at least aesthetically tolerable 😅😉
which btw @staff the default tumblr True Blue color scheme uses a font that fails both of these tests — UPDATE: test failure for every color scheme's default font when using the ios app (side note: we need a dark mode for the queer pride color scheme)
UPDATE: i just tested all color schemes on my chromebook -- Vampire theme has a default font (combined with a tolerable-to-my-eyes low-light compatible color scheme) that passes these readability tests in the chrome browser but i don't know about any of the other browsers *shruggie*
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and here's a color palette representation of the color choices i made on the poster with their associated hex codes
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some context:
so while i was working on research (motivated by @flamingwell 's post) about ways to make my podfics accessible for hearing-impaired fandom friends, i got to thinking about how i often struggle to read lovingly made podfic covers and painstakingly created fandom-themed gifsets and text post memes here on our beloved hellsite. and so i was inspired to try and raise awareness amongst the podficcers making cover arts and the magicians making gifsets & memes! about webdesign standards regarding visual accessibility
btw! if you're tracking this, my research and experimentation with how i personally can make my podfics more accessible to those with biomechanical and/or neurological hearing challenges is still in progress, but you can read more about what i've learned so far here!
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some links:
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my preferred browser-based tools for choosing font vs bkgd colors
https://colorable.jxnblk.com -- free & no ads
https://www.audioeye.com/color-contrast-checker -- free & some ads but Very Official lol
https://coolors.co/contrast-checker -- free & no account necessary to use & no ads -- also has a really neat color palette generator tool
https://www.canva.com/colors/color-wheel -- free & no account needed to use & no ads
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this tool simulates colorblindness on png / jpeg images
https://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckImage.php
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okay so! if you don't want to interact with the poster just now, or if you would like to be able to c&p an exact font name or color for your own use! here's a plain text list of all the fonts referenced as being low-vision / neurodivergent / dyslexia friendly in my opinion & based on my lived experiences on my poster, as well as the colors i chose to use as examples of high-contrast fonts vs bkgd
p.s. as of 2025.06.19--all but 2* of these fonts are available with a free account on canva.com
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my suggested body text aka plain fonts
ABeeZee
Amaranth
Belgrano
Nexa Slab*
honorable mention
Alice
Andika
BIZ UDPMincho
Cooper BT
Droid Serif
Duru Sans
(Atkinson) Hyperlegible
Marmelad
Merriweather
Monradok
Moonjelly*
PT Serif
Quando
Tirosh
my suggested header text aka fancy fonts
Black Ops One
Playwrite US Modern
Vast Shadow
honorable mention
Apple Juice
Bree Serif
Carollo Playscript
Comfortaa
Kurale
Lobster Two
Soft Icecream
Special Elite
my suggested websafe fonts (boring fallback choices, but necessary i guess)
Cambria / Caladea
Comic Sans
Courier New
Georgia
Verdana
Times New Roman / Tinos
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what colors did i use? and their hex codes
the dark blue bkgd #060644 aka ~federal blue~
the pale pink used for main header shape #ebddd7 aka ~champagne pink~
the yellow 'plain fonts' header shape #e0f19c aka ~mindaro~
the pale rose-pink header for 'fancy fonts' #9e6f6d aka ~rose taupe~
the grey bkgd for the text example boxes #373f51 aka ~charcoal~ and the pale pink font #ebddd7 aka ~champagne pink~
the yellow used on the example of how ugly the open dyslexic font is to me #ffd230 aka ~jonquil~
subtitles example: light blue font (usually called cyan in subtitle menus btw) #05e0e9 aka ~robin egg blue~ and black bkgd #000000
the honorable mentions box: blue #0033a0 aka ~egyptian blue~ and the white font #ffffff
the green-ish box #33443c aka ~dark slate gray~ using the pale pink font #ebddd7 aka ~champagne pink~ with the pale yellow link #e0f19c aka ~mindaro~
the purple box #5b3256 aka ~japanese violet~ using the pale pink font #ebddd7 aka ~champagne pink~ with the pale blue link #dcecf5 aka ~alice blue~
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a final consideration re font choices: don't be afraid to use Big Font Sizes and Use Up Some Space in your text overlay visual arts! especially for the most important information; WCAG standards recommend 18 point font size for easier readability (or a 14pt bolded font)
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TLDR--what i am asking for people to do when designing podfic covers and gifsets (well. really any artwork with a text overlay on an image) is to choose the font color and immediately surrounding background color to have a high contrast ratio (3:1 min for headers and 4.5:1 min for smaller fonts) AND to use dyslexia friendly fonts. pretty pretty please!
and in conclusion: OPEN DYSLEXIC IS AN UGLY FONT AND A DIRTY LIE AND I HATE IT SO MUCH PLS DON'T USE IT I BEG YOU orz orz orz YOU HAVE BETTER OPTIONS — SO. MANY. BETTER. OPTIONS
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