The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2019–2022
Superunion makes Lexend an open-access font tuned to ease reading for dyslexia
With a doctor, type designers and Google Fonts, Superunion evolves Lexend into a free variable typeface each reader can tune to reduce visual stress.
Superunion
What it had to solve
One in ten people — at least 780 million worldwide — are thought to have dyslexia; the stress and embarrassment of struggling to read can dent self-confidence and close educational and career doors. Superunion worked with a doctor and another production company to change how the world reads rather than asking readers to try harder.
How it works
One in ten people worldwide — at least 780 million — are thought to have dyslexia. Struggling to read brings stress and embarrassment that can damage confidence and narrow educational and career opportunities.
Superunion worked with a doctor and another production company to attack the problem at the point of reading. The collaboration took a research-based type system and built it into an open-access variable typographic system designed to change how the world reads.
Instead of one fixed typeface, Lexend is a variable font released free through Google Fonts: weight and expansion can be adjusted, letting each reader tune the type to reduce visual stress and improve reading fluency. The font adapts to the reader rather than the reader to the font.
Because the system is open-access it can appear anywhere text is read — classrooms, websites, workplaces — without cost or permission. The project won a D&AD Wood Pencil and an ADC Silver in 2022, was adopted by CosmosDirekt in its identity, and D&AD keeps it in the awards archive as a model of design for accessibility.
Why it lands
- The intervention is the text itself rather than a campaign about text, so it helps at the exact moment of reading.
- Variable, tunable settings put the reader in control of their own comfort — no separate, stigmatising 'dyslexia edition'.
- Free access through Google Fonts means the fix reaches classrooms and websites that could never license bespoke type.
- Pairing a doctor's research with type designers keeps the reading science inside the letterforms.
What it did
Reading stopped being one-size-fits-all: an open-access font that any reader can tune became available on Google Fonts and was adopted by German insurer CosmosDirekt as its brand typeface. The project earned a D&AD Wood Pencil and an ADC Silver in 2022, and D&AD keeps it in the awards archive.
What you can take
When the barrier is physical — visual stress — don't campaign about it, engineer around it: give the reader a dial on the type itself, then give the result away free.
Since then
Lexend began as a legacy type system and became a free, variable font on Google Fonts, adopted beyond the dyslexia community — German digital insurer CosmosDirekt took the evolved font into its brand identity. The project was recognised with a D&AD Wood Pencil and an ADC Silver in 2022, and remains in D&AD's awards archive as an example of open-access design for accessibility.
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