Print Design Accessibility
It is important that people with vision difficulties have the opportunity to get the information that everyone else has access to.
Some design, print and PDF considerations are outlined below.
- Print on mid weight papers so that the ink doesn’t run
- Use matt paper stocks and avoid gloss
Logos
- High contrast between light and dark colours
- Design options so the text is visible when the logo is small (such as text next to logo on website headers)
- Make the graphics as simple as possible so it’s visible when small
- limited colour so it’s visible when small
- Save in vector (eps and pdf)
Readability
- Ensure the reading level (ease of comprehension) of content is appropriate for the intended audience.
- Avoid acronyms unless necessary, and always expand each acronym the first time it is used on a page.
Text
- 12pt minimum
- High contrast (70% minimum contrast between colours)
- Use sans serif fonts, e.g. Arial and Helvetica.
- Avoid excessive use of italic, bold and all-capitals formatting.
- Align text to the left and avoid indenting paragraphs.
- ‘Leading’ or spacing between the lines of text, should be at least 25-30% of the point size.
- Use equal spacing between words and generous spacing between paragraphs.
- Ensure letters are well spaced.
PDF Accessibility
Often when I create a printed design, I then convert it into a PDF to use as an e-flyer to send out via email. When the PDF is especially formatted to be accessible to audio readers then information can be enjoyed by more people. However, when a PDF is automatically created the text is not in the correct order for an audio reader. This makes it difficult or impossible to understand the information if you are using a audio reader. If you want your PDF designs to be accessible for people who use readers to hear the PDF, you’ll need to tell your designer so they can correctly format it.