The lines land with slightly thicker strokes and dashes at the bottom. The letters leave little spaces inside as they curve up, like a stencil.
This new typeface, a curly variation of a slab serif font, is called Grace—made especially for millions of Christians who struggle to read Scripture due to dyslexia.
Major Bible publishers partnered with a specialty design firm to develop the inclusive Grace Typeface and are now releasing Bibles using the new lettering.
Lifeway Christian Resources has made two dyslexia-friendly versions of its Christian Standard Bible (CSB): CSB Grace Bible for Kids, out now, and the CSB Grace Bible, coming in February. Crossway Publishing, which prints the English Standard Version (ESV), plans to release the ESV Holy Bible: Dyslexia-Friendly Edition in January.
Graphic design company 2K/Denmark specializes in typesetting and production of complex texts like Bibles and spent years developing the typeface. 2K/Denmark was founded by Danish designer Klaus Erik Krogh, who has been called a “living legend of Bible design.”
Krogh was teaching at an Evangelical Christian Publishers Association event in Nashville five years ago when a woman approached him to discuss funding a Bible that was easier for people with dyslexia to read than typical Bibles, which have narrow fonts and thin pages.
“She just got the notion that she had to go to this conference to find somebody that might be able to help her to create a dyslexic typeface,” Krogh said.
Krogh decided to take on the project. 2K/Denmark began testing typefaces, designs, and concepts to make a Bible specially for those whose learning disability kept them from focused study in the past.
Up to 20 percent of people in the world have difficulty processing language due to dyslexia, though only a fraction receive a diagnosis for the condition. 2K/Denmark worked in partnership with Cambridge University, where researchers have spent decades developing methods and tools for testing reading and reading disabilities.
The Grace Typeface was created to help make letters and words easier for people with dyslexia to read. The thicker weight at the bottom of the letters “anchors” them to the baseline, mitigating the tendency for letters to bounce or float in readers’ eyes. The letters have different spacing or serifs within them to make it easier distinguish between similar letters, like b and d or p and q.
Plus, there’s more spacing throughout the text. Designers optimized the size of the type and the leading, or space between lines, to ensure the best possible experience for readers with dyslexia. None of the sections run longer than 11 lines. The font is 11 point, and there are no bold or italicized lines and no footnotes.
Working with Cambridge, “2K can then present solutions that are better than the ones they tested,” Krogh said. “We have full accessibility to all their electronic reading testing tools, and we use those as an inspiration to try to develop typefaces that actually are more efficient.”
The new typeface appears in a pair of new releases from Lifeway, including the first dyslexia-friendly children’s Bible, called CSB Grace Bible for Kids.
“We knew that this segment of readers was being underserved in the market when it came specifically to Bibles. Once we heard that some of our partners were working on the special typeface for dyslexic readers, we knew we had to do it,” said Andy McLean, publisher for Bibles and reference at Lifeway’s B&H Publishign Group. “Our goal as a Bible team is to help people of all ages engage meaningfully with God’s Word.”
Crossway decided to publish a dyslexia-friendly ESV Bible for similar reasons.
“We care deeply about making the Bible as accessible to as many people as possible. This particular edition flows out of that passion,” chief publishing officer Don Jones said. “All of the design elements are really exciting for us. We are hopeful that taken together this Bible will help those with dyslexia encounter the life-changing power of God’s Word.”
McLean said the early feedback has been positive after Lifeway distributed the new Bibles to families with reading challenges within their households. The kids’ edition also contains colored overlays, which are designed to reduce the contrast on the page and therefore reduce the visual stress for the reader.
So far, parents say the new Bibles working—they’ve seen kids spend more time reading.
Other companies have identified the need in the market as well. YouVersion has made the OpenDyslexic font available on the Bible app for better accessibility.
The British and Foreign Bible Society completed a dyslexia-friendly Bible earlier this year after starting with the Psalms and the Gospel of Mark in 2014, publishing the series in short volumes that are easier for readers to navigate. The UK Bibles are “laid out like novels rather than in traditional columns and use shorter paragraphs” and “use thick paper so words don’t show through from the next page.”
Krogh hopes to expand the use of his dyslexia-friendly font design to include other books as well, enabling readers with dyslexia to have better access to a range of materials beyond the Bible. Typically, his company sells its products to a singular publisher to own, but he intentionally opted to make the Grace Typeface nonproprietary.
“A typeface like the Grace Typeface works better the more you see it and get used to it,” said Krogh. “I’d like to have it out in all translations.”
Beyond Bible publishing, he plans to make the typeface available for a fee for both commercial and nonprofit organizations and free to individuals for personal use. Sarah Grace Publishing, a UK imprint dedicated to accessible books, including Christian kids books, has already adopted the new font for its offerings and on its website.
“I think the ability to do good—not necessarily to make the most money but actually to change people’s lives by giving them a tool where they read better—was suddenly more important for us than necessarily squeezing out the last dollar of the idea,” Krogh said.
“What really is the difference of a good life and a mediocre life is that you have the ability to read a novel, read maybe even a collection of poems, or sing your hymns from a hymn book,” he said. “That’s my faith, to use whatever God gave me to enrich other people’s lives. Something this important you should use to the best of your ability.”
The post And the Word Became Accessible: Publishers Release Dyslexia-Friendly Bibles appeared first on Christianity Today.
