ilovetypography.com article 2015: What are Optotypes? Eye Charts in Focus

I wrote an article for John Boardley, the curator of ilovetypography.com, about the symbols used on various eye charts that seem like they are letterforms, but are geometrically-derived symbols called Optotypes.
This was a fascinating subject!

My interest in this subject was piqued when a student asked me what typeface is used for eye charts....and although I knew there was no specific typeface for this purpose, I did not have any idea how complex and scientific this is. Now I know what to tell students when they ask....I can send them to this article!

This is the beginning of the article, published on July 12, 2015 on ilovetypography.com

with a great out-of-focus effect on the eye charts.
 

This was a really fun article to write, and it received a great response.

The beginning of the article.