Tiresias is a family of

TrueType TrueType is an outline font standard developed by Apple in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. It has become the most common format for fonts on the classic Mac OS, macOS, and Microsoft Windows operating sy ...

sans-serif

typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are list of type ...

s that were designed with the aim of legibility by people with impaired vision at the Scientific Research Unit of

Royal National Institute of Blind People The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) is a UK charity offering information, support and advice to almost two million people in the UK with sight loss. History The RNIB was founded by Thomas Rhodes Armitage, a doctor who had eye ...

in London. The font was originally designed for the RNIB by Chris Sharville of Laker Sharville Design Associates who was working with John Gill at the time. The family includes * Tiresias Infofont – for information labels, optimized for maximum legibility at a distance of 30–100 cm. * Tiresias Keyfont – for labeling the tops of keys of keyboards, PIN pads, appliances, remote controls (features exaggerated punctuation marks, no descender on the J) * Tiresias LPfont – for large-print publications. A wedge-serif design. * Tiresias PCfont – for raster displays * Tiresias Screenfont – for television subtitling and on-screen user interfaces * Tiresias Signfont – a more open spacing for use on signs In late 2007, all Tiresias fonts except Tiresias Screenfont were released under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

version 3 or any later version. The Tiresias Screenfont was sold by Bitstream Inc., who in 2012 were acquired by

Monotype Corporation Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc., founded as Lanston Monotype Machine Company in 1887 in Philadelphia by Tolbert Lanston, is an American (historically Anglo-American) company that specializes in digital typesetting and typeface design for use with ...

. The acquiring company continues to market Tiresias on its websites. The name likely refers to

Tiresias In Greek mythology, Tiresias (; grc, Τειρεσίας, Teiresías) was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph ...

from Greek Mythology, a blind prophet of Apollo.

References

External links

Debian font package
{{free and open-source typography Sans-serif typefaces Free software Unicode typefaces Typefaces and fonts introduced in 2001

See also

References

External links