Luciole

Luciole (French for “firefly”) is a new typeface developed explicitly for visually impaired people. The result of a two-year collaboration between the Centre Technique Régional pour la Déficience Visuelle (the Regional Technical Center for Visual Impairment) and the type-design studio typographies.fr, this project received a grant from the Swiss Ceres Foundation and support from the DIPHE laboratory at the Université Lumière Lyon 2.

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 the education of young people with disabilities and adapted teaching (INSHEA), 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.

The Luciole font is now used by specialized reference publishers but also by transcribers, teachers, developers, orthoptists.

Character Set

A

B

C

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F

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P

Q

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U

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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.

Text Align

Give the Luciole typeface a try by typing some text here.

a

Weight Overlay

Type a letter to view the specific character weights

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.

To install in MS Windows: copy the files to C:\Windows\Fonts, and then restart.
To install on Apple Mac: copy the files to Library\Fonts, and then restart.
To install on Linux: download, double-click on each file and then click on install.

You can download webfonts for web designers and developers here.
Luciole is supported by most ebook readers.
Contact us for further information or specific file format.

Project 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

Contact

contact@luciole-vision.com