This time, I took the inspiration mostly from the Greek epigraphic style. I wanted to see what could be done with only straight sides and sharp angles.
It looks to me like a definite improvement in visibility, but it feels hard on the eyes and reading is slower than with a typical text face.
This leads me to wonder, are more rounded forms needed for better reading speed? Is all-sharp-angles unworkable? There are scripts that just don't have curves. I need ideas on how to approach those cases.
I think the thick and thins are confusing my brain.
I know of no such study that looks at the influence of rounded versus angular letterforms on reading speed. A literature review should provide you with more than enough material to develop an experimental design to answer your research question.
If this is an academic project I would advise you ask your faculty to point you in the direction of someone in the psychology department of your school or a related one if you don’t have a psychology program. An experimental (as opposed to clinical) psychologist with experience in the cognition would be a good place to start. If they do not have experience with reading, they could most likely point you in the right direction as has been my experience.
Additionally, people in the references department/help desk of a local university library would be more than willing to show you how to do use the databases. I recommend PsychInfo or Web of Science.
There may be a few articles of interest in the literature section of my “web site.”
Captured from web.archive.org on 17 Mar 2015. view this capture