Inclusive Sans

Inclusive Sans is a text font designed for accessibility and readability. It is inspired by the friendly personality of contemporary neo-grotesques while incorporating key features to make it highly legible in all uses. The Regular and Italic styles are currently available for use on Google Fonts.

Background:
The conversation and guidelines around accessibility in typography has largely centred on type sizes and colour contrasts 1. However research 2 has shown that accessibility in type is crucial at a character level, where key features can enhance the readability of text for those who are hard of seeing or are neurodiverse.

After reading Sophie Beier's book Reading Letters: Designing for Legibility 3, working with clients across in disability non-for-profits and large government organisations, as well as conversations with fellow designer Johanna Roca, I was inspired to create a typeface that was truly legible at a character level. While some typefaces had been created in the same spirit 4, I wanted to create a font that was more contemporary and usable as a text typeface for all types of use.

To meet the criteria as outlined in Beier's work as well as Gareth Ford William's Guide 5, Inclusive Sans incorporates the following key features:

1. Clear distinction between I, l and 1

2. Non-mirroring of letters d, b, q and p

3. Distinction between O and 0

4. Wider, more open counter forms on c, o, a and e

5. A higher x-height for easier readability at small sizes

6. Wider default letter-spacing

7. Clear difference between capital height and ascender height

In early 2021 I started work on the Regular weight of Inclusive Sans while participating in a 10 week type design course run by Troy Leinster, and by August that year had completed the majority of the full Latin set. Living and working on Gadigal Country (Sydney, Australia) I felt it was important to include support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. She added an additional 48 glyphs with the help of Vincent Chan (in consultation with Sasha Wilmouth from the University of Melbourne).

Additional weights and styles are currently in development.