Off-highway uses of FHWA Series D

[J N Winkler]

To complement the wall clock thread . . .

I start with:

*  Airfield signs internationally (except at some airports, e.g. London Heathrow, where local traffic typefaces have been substituted)

*  Gate identification signs at many US airports

[agentsteel53]

Chevron gas stations use E or EM for the digits in their price displays.

[huskeroadgeek]

Several different companies use FHWA-like fonts in their advertising. Arby's is the one I notice the most.

[Quillz]

AT&T uses a modified version of Clearview as their official corporate font.

EDIT: Sorry, misread the topic title, thought it said off-highway uses of highway fonts.

[Dr Frankenstein]

Dairy Queen comes to my mind... I don't know if they're still using it though.

[cu2010]

Hannaford supermarkets here in the northeast use them as well...both in their print flyers and their website.

[Android]

K-Mart used to have their larger price tag signs in Series E or EM.   

The Weather Channel has used Highway Gothic on their maps and the local station forecasts for years.  Here's one link for my region's temperatures that I click on fairly often - the temperatures are all in series E, or maybe EM - hard to tell with the way they apply a "drop shadow" under the numbers. 

http://www.weather.com/maps/maptype/currentweatherusregional/northcentraluscurrenttemps_large.html


Now over on the railroads, many hundreds of coal cars (and some other types as well) owned by First Union Rail Leasing have been relettered over the last decade into their own reporting marks "FURX" and many of those were done in Series D Highway Gothic.  It was becuase of those that I first ever "paid attention" to that typeface, this was several years ago now. I work for a RR contractor at a coal mine, and suddenly stated seeing those all the time, mostly just former DEEX cars after the lease expired and FURX relettered them in their own marks.  But I'd see them when inspecting trains, and found the nice friendly letters were nice to read, they were larger and different letters than on most of the other coal cars I'd see while writing train lists. I knew I'd seen those letter before but could not remember where..... until one day on the way home from work I saw a Speed Limit sign and was like "aha!  that's where I seen those before" and that started my, uh, well,  "infatuation" with Highway Gothic. Two examples of FURX RR cars with Series D on them:





Also on the railroad, for Union Pacific, on their series of "Heritage Locomotives" they used Series E for engine numbers, both the painted on numbers and the light-up number boards. Two more examples:

[agentsteel53]

those last two locomotives are cool as hell!

[Quillz]

I work at a retail store and the containers we keep outside to store various merchandise are all numbered using Series B decals.

[Eth]

This may be stretching the definition of "off-highway", but the vast majority of school buses I've seen have the system name and bus number on the side in the FHWA fonts.  I've seen them ranging from Series B to D depending on the bus.

[Ian]

those last two locomotives are cool as hell!

I agree!

[ctsignguy]

Also on the railroad, for Union Pacific, on their series of "Heritage Locomotives" they used Series E for engine numbers, both the painted on numbers and the light-up number boards. Two more examples:

And if you are an 'N-scaler', these locomotives are available from KATO through finer hobby shops and mail-order hobby retailers....

[Roadsign199qc]

I've don't seen an highway font other than on the highway.

[6a]

Don't know if you'd call this 'off-highway' or not.  Our work trucks recently got a new number scheme, which called for new numbers (duh.)  This is pretty close, if not spot on (and the application is about as good as some of the signs I've seen )

[Android]

Okay, here's a crazy one, while it's not Series D exactly, it's definitely an "off-highway" usage.  This one certainly caught me by surprise.  I was making a frozen Safeway pizza the other day and decided to look at the nutrition facts label.

Immediately I noticed the spiked Highway Gothic style "t" in Nutrition, then I noticed the bold numbers were quite close to being Highway Gothic E-Modified.   Looked a little closer and realized that the entire Nutrition Facts Box was done in various derivations from Highway Gothic - well, one of similar commercial typefaces I'm sure.  Light and heavy type, stretched,etc.  I'm guessing someone in the Safeway products graphics department must be a roadgeek. 

Since this is something of a departure from the normal Nutrition Facts labelling, I took a few minutes to go and see if this was, in fact, "legal" or not.  FDA's website says it is. 

Q: How closely must I follow the "Examples of graphic enhancements used by the FDA" in appendix B to Part 101?

A: You are not required to follow Appendix B to Part 101. Appendix B and its specifications are a model, which FDA has suggested in the interest of uniformity of presentation. For example, 21 CFR 101.36(e)(3)(i) requires the use of an "easy-to-read" type style, not specifically Helvetica type, as suggested in Appendix B.

[stormwatch7721]

TV Guide magazine had the fonts.

[Dr Frankenstein]

It's election time in Canada, and I just got some documentation explaining which documents I need and some other stuff. About half of the text is in Series D and E, or a variant thereof.

[cu2010]

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is now using Series E for many of it's graphics.

[Scott5114]

Most of these "off-highway" uses aren't vanilla FHWA Series, but rather a typeface called Interstate, which was designed to resemble FHWA Series's letterforms but be more usable for other types of graphic design.

[Android]

yeah, that's about what I meant when I said " well, one of similar commercial typefaces" above. Interstate is one, there are others.

[ModusPwnins]

I noticed last night that the video game Portal 2 uses FHWA fonts in one of the sections.

Album:

[brownpelican]

WBZ-TV in Boston.
http://weather.boston.cbslocal.com/US/MA/Boston.html

[Scott5114]

I wonder where FHWA Series fonts and weather got linked. TWC's Intellistar uses them too.

[Dr Frankenstein]

It's used quite often on TV, it seems.

[on_wisconsin]

How about the Sierra Mist Logo (especially the 'Mist')?

bigger view: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/bc/Sierra_Mist_Natural_12-pack_cans_packaging.jpg/800px-Sierra_Mist_Natural_12-pack_cans_packaging.jpg