It’s All Material

I often find myself puzzling through the words accessibility, legibility, readability, and visibility. These concepts, though closely related, each hold a distinct weight and significance. Having spent much of my career navigating the nuanced relationship between language, identity, and form (and stumbling through them as gracefully as I can), I’ve come to see how the act of choosing a typeface—of giving form to language—becomes an exercise in identity construction, or of making voice visible. But this isn’t just about aesthetics or visual appeal. It’s about understanding the different ways in which people engage with written content and, perhaps more importantly, the ways in which those engagements are shaped by their unique, often invisible, and intersecting identities.

Typography, in its most applied sense, is the art of arranging type. Yet, when we look more closely at how text functions in the world, we find that it is not a neutral vessel for communication. It is a living, breathing thing, constantly shifting to reflect the values, needs, and identities of those who produce and consume it. That’s why when we see a text set in pink, glittering Balloon, the words sound differently in our heads than a text set in black, all-capital Copperplate Gothic. Text is both a reflection and a construction of self. It relies on context clues from the cultures and communities we are tied to—whether by choice or reluctantly. The more I study this relationship (it’s a lifelong endeavor), the more identity seems cemented to the visibility and accessibility of what we read, what we see, and how we see it.

Consider, for example, the difference between legibility and readability. Legibility refers to how easily individual characters can be distinguished from one another, while readability encompasses how easily entire blocks of text can be processed. The tension between these two concepts, in some ways, mirrors the complex dance between visibility and accessibility. Visibility is about the presence of something in the world—it’s about whether something is seen, perceived, and acknowledged. Accessibility, however, is about who gets to see something, how they engage with it, and whether it accommodates a diverse range of abilities and needs. In a world of fixed expectations and rigid structures, these two ideas—visibility and accessibility—are often at odds, yet they must exist in tandem to foster inclusive communication. The relationship between them feels complicated and meaningful to me, personally, as a queer person frequently put in a position to out or announce myself among newer colleagues—when defending a queer student, unpacking language, or explaining my research.

These four concerns are important when considering the typefaces we choose, the design systems we build, and the words we speak in both personal and professional spaces. Who do you want to be legible to? What does it mean to really be seen? Typography is both an instrument and a reflection of power dynamics. The legibility of a document, the visibility of a sign, the accessibility of an interface—these choices are not just functional. They are political. It is not lost on most designers that the lexicon of typography and layout is one of the body—we speak of the bleed, headers, footers, body text, and so on.

Typography, then, is not just about organizing words—it is about understanding and responding to the identities of those who read and interact with them. Typography has a materiality just as wood, clay, or any other physical material does. We can shape it like hammering out a piece of roughed-up aluminum. Designing type also requires a sensitivity that many don’t pay attention to. The choices are nearly endless when selecting a font, and I am often drawn to what’s readily available and free. Sometimes these are thought of as the “bad” fonts. But there’s a curiosity in me about the tools that traditional design education deems inadequate because they’re cheap or mundane. When you are put in an urgent position to announce yourself, you often work quickly with what’s close at hand: the fonts on your computer, the free paper on a stack next to your work printer, the online template that allows you to publish in an instant. You might choose fonts that dare you to look because they seem a bit funny or unreadable; maybe they dare you to slow down in order to read the text.

Typography is a medium of connection, but it can also be a powerful tool for division. It shapes how we read, what we understand, and how we relate to one another. It allows us the power to say who is allowed to come in and who isn’t. As such, it has the potential to either reinforce the boundaries that divide us or open up new spaces of inclusion and accessibility. The choices we make about typeface, color, spacing, and structure are not neutral—they carry with them the weight of identity, both individual and collective. As we continue to engage with these elements, we have to ask ourselves, who are we a bridge or border to?