Stylogic

Stylogic is a phonemic script created by Richard Agnew as an alternative way to write English and other languages. The form and position of each glyph reflects how the sound is produced. Rather than an arbitrary set of symbols, it encodes key aspects of articulation directly into the script.

Background

Phonetic writing systems face a recurring trade-off: representing many sounds requires either a large set of symbols that are difficult to learn, or a smaller set with modifiers that can be hard to distinguish.

Stylogic addresses this by focusing on phonemic rather than full phonetic precision. This keeps the symbol set compact and learnable, while maintaining clear visual distinction and practical usability.

How it works

The system is built around five principles:

Vowels form a continuous baseline.
Consonants are written as accents positioned around the vowel line, without interrupting it.
Vowel glyphs reflect vocal shape.
They encode how the sound feels in the mouth, based on factors like openness, position and tension. Diphthongs typically combine a base vowel with the shape of the sound they move towards.
Consonant categories have distinct forms.
Stops are dots, nasals are lines, approximants are circles and fricatives are tails.
Position and direction encode place of articulation.
Front-of-mouth sounds sit higher or point forward; back-of-mouth sounds sit lower or point back.
Voicing is marked by a small addition.
Dots double; tails gain a curl.

Notable Features

Type of writing system: phonemic (featural)
Writing direction: left to right in horizontal lines.
Used to write: English, particularly R.P. (received pronunciation) of British English, with extensions for other languages.

Stylogic script

Coverage

The core system covers all phonemes of Received Pronunciation (RP) English. Extensions follow the same spatial logic to represent additional sounds, such as retroflex consonants, aspirated stops, clicks, tones and stress.

Typing

Each glyph maps to a single keystroke on a standard keyboard, via a transliteration system (Stylog), allowing text to be typed without specialised input methods and rendered automatically through a font.

Sample text

Sample text in Stylogic

Transliteration

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

More information about Stylogic
daodesign.co.uk/stylogic/

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