Tiresias (typeface)


Tiresias is a family of TrueType sans-serif typefaces 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 in London. The font was originally designed for the RNIB by Chris Sharville of who was working with John Gill at the time. It has been much criticised.
Tiresias is the font used in subtitles for digital terrestrial television, and digital satellite targeting the UK. It is also used in Ireland, Denmark and Finland's national public-broadcasting company'. It was also purchased by the state owned TVNZ for use on their DVB terrestrial channels. Norwegian railroad infrastructure company Bane NOR is using the font on info screens.
The family includes
In late 2007, all Tiresias fonts except Tiresias Screenfont were released under the GNU General Public License version 3 or any later version.
The Tiresias Screenfont is expensive to license and was sold by Bitstream Inc., who in 2012 were acquired by Monotype Corporation. The acquiring company continues to market Tiresias on its , and it also offers a similar font called .

Criticism

Criticism has been levelled at Tiresias on the grounds of the lack of professional initial commissioning, the business model, the lack of italics, confusable characters, the product testing and the potential cost to end-users.