Latin

Regular

Zed Display Variable

In its most general sense, the term ‘world’ refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique while others talk of a ‘plurality of worlds’. Some treat the world as one simple object while others analyze the world as a complex made up of many parts. In scientific cosmology the world or universe is commonly defined as ’the totality of all space and time; all that is, has been, and will be’. Theories of modality, on the other hand, talk of possible worlds as complete and consistent ways how things could have been. Phenomenology, starting from the horizon of co-given objects present in the periphery of every experience, defines the world as the biggest horizon or the ‘horizon of all horizons’. In philosophy of mind, the world is commonly contrasted with the mind as that which is represented by the mind. Theology conceptualizes the world in relation to God, for example, as God’s creation, as identical to God or as the two being interdependent. In religions, there is often a tendency to downgrade the material or sensory world in favor of a spiritual world to be sought through religious practice. A comprehensive representation of the world and our place in it, as is commonly found in religions, is known as a worldview. Cosmogony is the field that studies the origin or creation of the world while eschatology refers to the science or doctrine of the last things or of the end of the world.

Zed is a typeface designed for inclusivity and accessibility; in particular, it identifies and addresses situations where people are excluded from using certain technologies. We have <a href="https://www.typotheque.com/articles/designing-fonts-with-low-vision-readers-in-mind">tested the typefaces with help from visually impaired readers</a> and have worked with marginalised linguistic communities and native designers around the world. As a result, Zed is a highly accessible typeface for diverse populations.

Zed cover

Concept

Most 20th-century sans-serif typefaces are design compromises – they tend to be display typefaces that also have to work in text settings. Zed directly addresses this shortcoming, it is an uncompromising typeface family with two optical versions, with radically different text and display versions developed using the latest research into which letterforms are found the easiest to read by the widest range of readers. <a href="https://www.typotheque.com/articles/sans-for-small-text-sizes">Read about designing a sans-serif for small text.</a>

Zed super family, optical sizes

A sans for small text … and large.

We carried out a <a href="https://www.typotheque.com/articles/designing-fonts-with-low-vision-readers-in-mind">series of laboratory acuity tests at the National Centre of Ophthalmology</a> in Paris to determine the ideal letter proportions for their visually impaired patients. During the tests, <a href="http://www.typotheque.com/fonts/zed-text">Zed Text</a> was directly compared with – and outperformed – Helvetica in terms of speed of reading for all types of hospital patients. <a href="http://www.typotheque.com/fonts/zed-text-wide">Zed Text Wide</a> is an exceptionally readable typeface that has been shown to benefit healthy readers as well as those with visual impairments such as age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma or other diseases that severely impair focusing, like keratoconus.

Zed super family, research

Rooted in science

Imagine a design with three dimensions – weight, width and skew – that allows you to select a style at any point along these axes. This allows you to work with hundreds of defined fonts, or any interval between them. Then imagine adding another dimension that enables you to round any letter or symbol as you wish. The possibilities multiply. And now imagine adding a fifth dimension, one that controls optical size, whereby the shape and white space of letters can be adjusted to a fixed physical size for optimal legibility. Finally, imagine the cultural dimensions that Zed supports, in relation to most of the world’s scripts. This is the design space occupied by Zed, an unparalleled type system designed with information accessibility in mind.

Zed super family, variable axes

Wider, narrower, bolder, rounded, more slanted?

The world is diverse, as is the use of writing scripts, and so we are currently working with designers and communities worldwide on further language extensions to support Arabic, Armenian, Bangla, Canadian Syllabics, Cherokee, Chinese, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Georgian, Greek, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Hebrew, Japanese, Kannada, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Malayalam, Meetei, Odia, Ol Chiki, Sinhala, Tamil, Telugu, and Thai. This makes Zed a truly accessible typeface and demonstrates Typotheque’s commitment to cultural diversity.

Zed super family, global font

Accessible everywhere

<a href="https://www.typotheque.com/books/zed-type-specimen">This type specimen</a> not only showcases the details of each style in the Zed super family, but also documents the design process and presents three new essays. <em>Designing fonts with low-vision readers in mind</em> documents the reading acuity experiment conducted at the National Centre of Ophthalmology in Paris, and two other essays cover designing sans-serif fonts for small text use and notes on designing Braille fonts. The <a href="https://www.typotheque.com/books/zed-type-specimen">80-pages book</a> includes information on 196 endangered languages, and the cover links this to the loss of biodiversity. <a href="https://www.typotheque.com/books/endangered-plants-cards">Check out also this series of postcards.</a>

Zed super family, type specimen

Printed type specimen

There are situations where words or translations are not enough, and in such circumstances icons, symbols and pictograms can be extremely effective. <a href="https://www.typotheque.com/fonts/zed-icons">Zed Icons</a> comes with hundreds of icons that break down traditional language barriers, and as with the rest of this type system, these icons are available in a range of weights and visual styles to match the proportions of the typeface employed by the user.

Communication without words

To create a truly accessible typeface, we went beyond the visual capacity to include Braille characters in Zed’s glyph set. Designing a Braille font, however, presents a whole new set of challenges, as it serves a group of users with different needs. We undertook an extensive review of literature and recommendations in order to understand the Braille system and its use in different regions. <a href="https://www.typotheque.com/articles/braille-character-spacing">Read more about Zed Braille.</a>

Zed super family, Braille

Braille

Cyrillic

Abaza

Abkhaz

Adyghe

Altai

Avar

Azeri (Cyrillic)

Azeri (Latin)

Balkar

Bashkir

Belarusian

Bosnian

Bulgarian

Buryat

Chechen

Chuvash

Crimean Tatar

Dargin

Dungan

Evenki

Gagauz

Ingush

Kabardian

Kalmyk

Karakalpak

Kazakh

Khakas

Kirghyz

Komi

Koryak

Kumyk

Lezgian

Macedonian

Manci

Mansi

Mari

Mongolian

Montenegrin

Mordvin (Erzya)

Mordvin (Moksha)

Muslim Tat, Latin

Nanai

Nenets

Nogai

Ossetic

Romanian

Russian

Rusyn 

Selkup

Serbian

Shor

Tabasaran

Tajik (Cyrillic)

Talysh, Latin

Tatar

Tsakhur

Turkmen

Tuva

Tuvan

Udmurt

Uighur

Ukrainian

Uzbek

Western Mari

Yakut

Greek

Greek (modern)

Abidji

Abron

Abua

Achinese

Achuar-Shiwiar

Acoli

Adangme

Adara

Adele

Adioukrou

Afar

Afrikaans

Agatu

Aghem

Agwagwune

Ahanta

Ahtna

Akoose

Alago

Albanian

Alekano

Aleut

Anaang

Anufo

Anyin

Ao Naga

Arabic, Chadian Spoken

Aragonese

Aromanian

Ashe

Asturian

Awak

Awing

Ayizo Gbe

Aymara

Baatonum

Bafia

Bafut

Baga Sitemu

Baka

Balanta-Ganja

Balinese

Bambara

Bamun, Latin

Banda, West Central

Bandi

Bangwinji

Baoulé

Bapuku

Bari

Basa

Basaa

Basque

Batak Toba

Bedawiyet

Bedjond

Bekwarra

Bemba

Bena

Bench

Beng

Benga

Berom

Bete-Bendi

Bété, Daloa

Bété, Guiberoua

Bhele

Bikol

Bilen

Bimoba

Bini

Birifor, Southern

Bisã

Bislama

Bissa

Blackfoot

Bokobaru

Bomu

Bozo, Hainyaxo

Breton

Bube

Buginese

Bulu

Bura-Pabir

Burak

Bushi

C’Lela

Cahungwarya

Cakfem-Mushere

Carib

Catalan

Cebaara Senoufo

Cebuano

Central Atlas Tamazight

Central Yupik

Thai

Chinese

Cantonese (Simplified)

Japanese

Korean

Design

Contributors

Engineering

Awards

Released

Con il sostantivo mondo si usa designare la totalità della dimensione in cui vivono gli esseri umani, comprendente tutti i suoi abitanti animati e inanimati, inteso anche come il loro luogo primigenio in senso cosmologico e filosofico, distinto dagli altri pianeti ed oggetti materiali o metafisici che costellano l’Universo. Si distingue dal concetto di Terra che ricopre invece il significato di mera entità fisica. In un contesto metafisico, esso può anche fare riferimento a ogni ambito, insieme o sfera globale in sé compiuta, esistente nella realtà o nell’universo. La definizione di mondo nella lingua italiana proviene dall’espressione latina locus mundus nella sua accezione di «luogo pulito, chiaro, visibile» (cioè «mondato»), ovvero quella porzione della Terra, ma anche del cielo, illuminata dalla luce e quindi visibile, identificabile e riconoscibile dall’essere umano. Ma in tale definizione è implicito in aggiunta anche il valore di «ornamento» e di «elegante» inteso come il luogo ordinato dove regna la bellezza, insito anche nel greco kósmos con significato di «ordine, ornamento, bellezza», contrapposto al chàos e che rimanda al pensiero pitagorico ellenistico.

This stylistic set replaces the standard lower-case ‘a’ and all of its accented versions with the cursive variant, also known as single-story ‘a’.

Cursive ‘a’

Pure, minimalist, pragmatic, with forms reduced to the essence, but never compromising legibility, Zed Display is a prototypical sans with no embellishments, for effective communication.

Zed Display