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tactile images

Touching The News: What do the 12 signs of the Zodiac look like?
Touching the News

Touching The News: What do the 12 signs of the Zodiac look like?

12 signs of the zodiac with braille labels

Title: Twelve Zodiac Signs

Description: Twelve symbols laid out in a grid, 3 across and 4 down. From left to right, top to bottom.

  1. Aries (ram). The symbol represents the face and horn of a ram.
  2. Taurus (bull). The symbol represents the face and horns of a bull.
  3. Gemini (twins). The symbol represents companionship.
  4. Cancer (crab). The symbol represents the connection to both material and spiritual worlds.
  5. Leo (lion). The symbol represents a lion’s head and mane.
  6. Virgo (virgin). The symbol represents the first three letters of the Greek word parthenos, which means “virgin.”
  7. Libra (scale). The symbol represents a scale.
  8. Scorpio (scorpion). The symbol represents the stinger of a scorpion.
  9. Sagittarius (archer). The symbol represents the arrow of a centaur aiming to the high realms.
  10. Capricorn (sea-goat or mountain goat). The symbol represents the body, head, and horns of a goat with the tail of a fish.
  11. Aquarius (water bearer). The symbol represents ripples of water.
  12. Pisces (fish). The symbol represents two fish tied together, swimming in opposite directions

Download Graphic

ZIP folder contains files for producing tactile graphics on 8.5 x 11-inch paper, portrait:

  • PRNs for ViewPlus Columbia / Delta, APH PixBlaster, IRIE BrailleTrac / BrailleSheet;
  • PDFs for Swell, Microcapsule or PIAF;
  • Reference PDFs with corresponding large print text (not for tactile production).

Printing Instructions and Supported Embossers

How to unzip/uncompress: Windows 10, Windows 8.1, MacOS.

Submit Your Ideas and Touch The News

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Sign up to receive tactile graphics files to print at home.

Back to Touching The News Gallery

How big was that iceberg that broke off Antarctica in February?
Touching the News

How big was that iceberg that broke off Antarctica in February?

Map of antarctica with braille labels, detail map of Antarctica and iceberg with braille labels.

Tactile map 1: Antarctica Map

Description: Map of Antarctica with scale lines, showing longitude lines, Antarctic Circle line, and location of Halley VI Research Station.

Tactile map 2: A-74 Iceberg Map

Description: Detail map of Antarctica showing A-74 Iceberg location, with scale lines, lat/long lines, location of Halley VI Research Station, and labels for Weddell Sea and Brunt Ice Shelf.

Source: NOAA, USA Today, Space.com, British Antarctic Survey.

The A-74 Iceberg covers about 1,270 square kilometers. Cities with similar areas: Phoenix, US (1,230 sq. km); Los Angeles, US (1,215 sq. km); Wellington, New Zealand (1,388 sq. km); Delhi, India (1,483 sq. km); London, UK (1,579 sq. km). Source: The Measure of Things.

Download Maps

ZIP folder contains files for producing 2 tactile maps on 8.5 x 11-inch paper:

  • PRNs for ViewPlus Columbia / Delta, APH PixBlaster, IRIE BrailleTrac / BrailleSheet;
  • PDFs for Swell, Microcapsule or PIAF;
  • Reference PDFs with corresponding large print text (not for tactile production).

Printing Instructions and Supported Embossers

How to unzip/uncompress: Windows 10, Windows 8.1, MacOS.

Submit Your Ideas and Touch The News

Sign up

Sign up to receive tactile graphics files to print at home.

Back to Touching The News Gallery

LightHouse Introduces “Touching the News”
LightHouse News

LightHouse Introduces “Touching the News”

Have you ever been reading a news item or watching it on TV, and thought to yourself: “I wonder what that picture is?” Ever witnessed a meme on social media go viral and want to get your hands on it to really understand what it is? As people who are blind or have low vision, we are surrounded by visual information there is no other way to experience without somebody else interpreting it for us, usually by describing it verbally. That, of course, is great. We love and appreciate the thought and effort that goes in to doing that. But what if you were delivered, into your mailbox, a tactile graphic associated with a news story. So you could then emboss it yourself, or have it raised on swell paper?

That very thing will be coming to you in the next couple of weeks. You will also get the opportunity to choose from a list of proposed graphics each time, and the one with the most votes will be the one produced that week.

You might find yourself thinking: “I wish I could get my hands on one of those Oscar statues”, well, now you just might, even without being at the Academy Awards. Space travel might be your obsession and you’re itching to know what the helicopter is like that recently took off from and landed on Mars.

There will be more in the coming days but if you are interested in subscribing to this new free service, send an email to ttn@lighthouse-sf.org.