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Comment by squigz | Hacker News Reader

It's amusing to me that artistic gatekeeping exists even in typography. What was the class consensus on whether it counts? Also, you should share the piece

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Braille is not a typeface in the same way that the alphabet is not a typeface.

Sometimes, I'm blown away by ignorance.

Is all Braille identical? No equivalent of typeface where the dots are shaped of spaced differently, but in the same Braille pattern?

When printed it would be different if the embossing pins were new or worn.

The dots could be squares. The size of the dots (boldness) can vary.

No, here's a nice table of the sizes used.

https://www.pharmabraille.com/pharmaceutical-braille/marburg...

I am typing in the alphabet, and yet, you see a typeface

Sprinkle in some pedantry with the gatekeeping, and we're really set!

As a concept, neither is a typeface. But in printed form, whatever consistent lettering you use to represent an alphabet is a typeface. Why should a printed/raised lettering for Braille be considered any different from a typeface printed for any other alphabet? Or typefaces for logographic writing systems, for that matter?

Braille (the concept) is not a typeface, just like the concept of representing certain sounds by pictures on paper is not a typeface.

Unified English Braille (the specification that maps dot combinations to English characters) is not a typeface, just like ASCII is not a typeface.

I Ould argue, however, that a specification like Marburg Medium[1], which specifies how Braille should be represented physically, how big the dots should be, how far apart they should be spaced etc, is a typeface.

[1] https://www.pharmabraille.com/pharmaceutical-braille/marburg...

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