Latin

Regular

Zed Text Variable

Ως σύμπαν νοείται το σύνολο του χώρου και του χρόνου και των περιεχομένων τους. Σύμφωνα με την επιστήμη το σύμπαν αφορά το χωροχρονικό συνεχές, στο οποίο περιλαμβάνεται το σύνολο της ύλης, της ενέργειας και της πληροφορίας. Το σύμπαν, στις μεγάλες διαστάσεις του, είναι αντικείμενο μελέτης της επιστήμης της αστροφυσικής. Στις πολύ μικρές διαστάσεις το σύμπαν το εξερευνά η κβαντική μηχανική. Ενδιάμεσα προσπαθούν να κατανοήσουν τη λειτουργία του και την υπόστασή του όλες οι επιστήμες. Οι γνωστές μορφές της ενέργειας, όπως το φως, η θερμότητα κτλ. συνδέονται με την ύλη μέσα από σχέσεις ανταλλαγής. Σύμφωνα με τη σύγχρονη Φυσική, υπάρχει ισοδυναμία μεταξύ ύλης και ενέργειας, οπότε και οι δύο συνολικά απαρτίζουν το σύμπαν. Μέσα στο σύμπαν ενδεχομένως περιλαμβάνεται και η σκοτεινή ύλη, όχι όμως απαραίτητα και η σκοτεινή ενέργεια. Το σύμπαν αφορά την τωρινή κατάσταση της ύλης και της ενέργειάς του. Η εικόνα της παρατήρησης αστέρων, γαλαξιών κλπ είναι ψευδής σε ότι αφορά το παρόν και δεν αποτελεί κατ’ ανάγκη τη μορφή που έχει το σύμπαν σήμερα, καθώς ένας αστέρας π.χ. μπορεί να έχει πάψει να υπάρχει και να μην το γνωρίζουμε ακόμα γιατί δεν έχει ταξιδέψει ως εμάς η πληροφορία αυτή μέσω του φωτός. Υποθέτοντας πως στο σύμπαν δεν εισρέει ύλη ή ενέργεια, και ούτε χάνονται από αυτό, η εικόνα του παρελθόντος, με βάση την ισοδυναμία ύλης και ενέργειας, μας βοηθάει να εκτιμήσουμε ποσοτικά το σύνολό τους. Θεωρίες όπως αυτή της μεγάλης έκρηξης εκτιμούν ότι το σχήμα του Σύμπαντος είναι, το πιθανότερο, υπερσφαιρικό. Μια υπερσφαίρα (η οποία ορίζεται σε 4 διαστάσεις) μπορεί να νοηθεί αφαιρετικά ως μια σφαίρα τριών διαστάσεων της οποίας η ακτίνα συνεχώς μεταβάλλεται, μοιάζοντας με μπαλόνι που διαστέλλεται.

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

Design

Contributors

Engineering

Awards

Released

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’

This stylistic set replaces the standard lower-case ‘g’ and all of its accented versions with the constructed ‘g’, also known as double-story ‘g’.

Double story ‘g’

This stylistic set replaces the lower-case ‘l’ with a tail and all of its accented versions with the simplified version of ‘l’ without the tail.

Simple ‘l’

This stylistic set replaces the simple capital ‘I’ and all of its accented versions with a more differentiated form of ‘I’ with serifs to increase its recognisability and accessibility.

Capital ‘I’ with serifs

The widest version of Zed Text has been specifically designed for visually impaired readers and tested in laboratory conditions where it outperformed conventional typefaces. A remarkably legible typeface for reading at a distance and short passages of text.

Zed Text Extra-Wide

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