Luciole is a new typeface developed explicitly for visually impaired people.
Introduction
The result of a two-year collaboration between the Regional Technical Center for Visual Impairment and the type-design studio typographies.fr, this project received a grant from the Swiss Ceres Foundation, the PEP69 association and support from the DIPHE laboratory at the Université Lumière Lyon 2.
In the last few years, Luciole has asserted itself as a new typographical standard in the field of visual impairment in France, and is used by leading publishers and hundreds of professionals in the field of visual impairment.
About
A typeface for visual impairment
Word massing, spacing, the structure of the letters: the concept for Luciole adheres to a dozen specific design criteria to provide the best possible reading experience for the visually impaired. Particular care has been taken in drawing the figures, mathematical signs, and punctuation.
The project creation process has been treated in many conferences such as the NTIC at the French National Institute for the Blind (INJA), the RNLA at the French National School of Library and Information Science (ENSSIB), the DVEI at the National Institute for Professional Training and Research for Inclusive Education (INSEI), among others.
A powerful editorial tool
Each style of Luciole contains over seven hundred characters and supports almost all European languages. The character set also includes many Greek and mathematical symbols for scientific notation. Luciole aims to facilitate both optimal readability for visually impaired students and efficient deployment by publishing professionals.
A separate mathematical typeface called Luciole Math is also available for university students and researchers.
The Luciole font is now used by publishers but also by transcribers, teachers, developers, orthoptists. Today, tens of thousands of books printed in Luciole improve the daily lives of visually impaired readers.
A typeface to advance research
As a result of this project, three reading tests based studies have been carried out with visually impaired students or adults:
- In the DIPHE laboratory, University Lumière Lyon 2 [study completed, published]
- In the CTRDV’s ophthalmological assessment [study completed, published]
- As part of the ISTR’s graduation project, Department of Orthoptics, University Lyon 1 [study completed]
These three studies reveal a preference of visually impaired readers in favor of Luciole.
Try it
Give the Luciole typeface a try by typing some text here.
Download
Download the typeface
Luciole is available for download under a Creative Commons Attribution license, which covers use (including commercial use) and distribution of the typeface for free. Simply download the fonts and move the files to the appropriate Fonts folder on your computer. You can download webfonts for web designers and developers.
Download Luciole (ZIP · 244 Ko)
Download Luciole webfonts (ZIP · 2.1 Mo)
Luciole Math for academics is available for download under a OFL license, which covers use (including commercial use) and distribution of the typeface for free.
Contact us for further information or specific file format.
The team
Project initial team
- Coordination: Carole Malet and Jonathan Fabreguettes
- Ophthalmologist: Dr Florence de Saint-Étienne
- Orthoptist: Anne-Céline Blanc
- Psychologist: Véronique Morra
- Typeface designer: Laurent Bourcellier
- Transcriber: Jonathan Fabreguettes
- Researchers: Anna-Rita Galiano (PhD) and Nicolas Baltenneck (PhD)
- Students: Gaétane Hurstel, Camille Benas, Gaëlle Bonnesseur, Hind Drissi and Vanessa Augereau-Depoix
Project current team
- Coordination: Cécile Gautier and Jonathan Fabreguettes
- Ophthalmologist: Dr Florence de Saint-Étienne
- Typeface designers: Laurent Bourcellier and Daniel Flipo
- Transcriber: Jonathan Fabreguettes
- Mathematician: Daniel Flipo
- International development: Nawal Fetnaci
- Training development: Muriel Villard