Unique, Odd, or Interesting Signs aka The good, the bad, and the ugly

[Ricw24]

https://goo.gl/maps/XvuTLgYMV2mvyLEL7

I did not know NY Thruway Authority uses Arial.

[Big John]

^^ That is actually Helvetica.

[Ricw24]

^^ That is actually Helvetica.

Sorry my bad

[machias]

^^ That is actually Helvetica.

Sorry my bad

Those signs are very old. I'm guessing maybe 20+ years old?

[Ricw24]

^^ That is actually Helvetica.

Sorry my bad

Those signs are very old. I'm guessing maybe 20+ years old?

The exit tab style is also different from the current Thruway style so I am assuming it is.

[thenetwork]

^^ That is actually Helvetica.

Sorry my bad

Those signs are very old. I'm guessing maybe 20+ years old?

They are probably closer to 25 years old.

And still the I-190 "pull-through" sign still has an error: 

The sign leads you believe that the exit TO I-190 North / Niagara Falls is 5 Miles Ahead, in the same vein as the Beaver Park exit being 1/4-mile ahead.  Or better yet, like an Illinois Tollway next exit sign.

When in fact the sign is really trying to say is that you are ALREADY on I-190 North, and the distance to Niagara Falls (city limit, not the actual falls) is 5 miles. 

Confused?

[kphoger]

https://goo.gl/maps/XvuTLgYMV2mvyLEL7

I did not know NY Thruway Authority uses Arial.

^^ That is actually Helvetica.

Sorry my bad

Around here, that's known as Arialveticverstesk.

[fwydriver405]

A little cheap, pt. II? I came across this I-95 assembly in Portsmouth NH on 2021/04/13, which kinda reminded me of a similar assembly from Alp's I-95 New Hampshire page (first picture on the top):

[Scott5114]

Around here, that's known as Arialveticverstesk.

I know that was Jake's preferred nomenclature, because Arial, Helvetica, Univers, and Akzidenz-Grotesk do all look fairly similar to one another at first glance. But I prefer to note which of the four a specific sign is, because it reveals a little bit about the person who made it:

• Arial means a rank amateur was put in charge of making a sign, who probably barely knows what fonts are other than being able to tell the difference between serif and sans-serif, so they just go with the first sans-serif they can think of. (The same is true of the choice of any Windows system font, such as Franklin Gothic.)
• Helvetica indicates the person was in charge of a sign has a little bit of design experience, enough to know that Helvetica is considered preferable to Arial. They also probably know that Helvetica is the designer's default sans-serif of choice, so it's probably safe to go with. They may be familiar with New York subway signage, or some other context that Helvetica is used on signage, and reason that it would make sense to be on a road sign too.
• I've never seen Univers or Akzidenz-Grotesk on a road sign, but I would expect that someone choosing one of those fonts knows full well that they don't have the right font and just don't have a copy of FHWA Series or Clearview installed, so they probably looked through all of the fonts that they did have trying to find something that was a reasonably close match.

[odditude]

Helvetica indicates the person was in charge of a sign has a little bit of design experience, enough to know that Helvetica is considered preferable to Arial.

...or they're a rank amateur using a Mac instead of Windows 

[kphoger]

Helvetica indicates the person was in charge of a sign has a little bit of design experience, enough to know that Helvetica is considered preferable to Arial.

...or they're a rank amateur using a Mac instead of Windows 

That's the correct answer.

[JayhawkCO]

I'm confused... which way do I go?

Chris

[Ricw24]

This.

https://goo.gl/maps/RhisUL9khGVnY2AC9

[StogieGuy7]

This.

https://goo.gl/maps/RhisUL9khGVnY2AC9

The offspring of an interstate and a MD state highway.

[Ricw24]

The offspring of an interstate and a MD state highway.

Kinda reminds me of the Chinese Expressway Marker

[Scott5114]

This.

https://goo.gl/maps/RhisUL9khGVnY2AC9

Oh hey, it's this thing again.

I've always thought that would be a good design for a "future interstate" marker. Like it's the marble block an Interstate shield gets chiseled out of, or something like that.

[formulanone]

This.

https://goo.gl/maps/RhisUL9khGVnY2AC9

Oh hey, it's this thing again.

I've always thought that would be a good design for a "future interstate" marker. Like it's the marble block an Interstate shield gets chiseled out of, or something like that.

There's has to be a short story behind those signs; it probably involves 1) adamant desire to denote nearest interstate 2) pre-cut blanks 3) no working metal cutter 4) signs need to be up...yesterday.

[Scott5114]

I don't know why you wouldn't just print the shield on a black background like Wisconsin does, in that case. Maybe it was somebody from Maryland or Minnesota that designed the shield.

[Bobby5280]

Arial means a rank amateur was put in charge of making a sign, who probably barely knows what fonts are other than being able to tell the difference between serif and sans-serif, so they just go with the first sans-serif they can think of. (The same is true of the choice of any Windows system font, such as Franklin Gothic.)

In the commercial sign industry there is an army of hacks who frequently use default Arial regardless how visually toxic the typeface can look combined with other letter styles. Arial is ugly enough on its own. It gets even more hideous when people artificially squeeze or stretch it to fit any space.

Some of the people who use Arial in knee-jerk fashion are newbies who don't know any better. But I've seen plenty of people who have worked in the sign industry many years who do the same thing out of sheer laziness. Those are the guys I want to punch in the mouth. There's no excuse for it but they do it anyway, despite probably having at least an acceptable font collection. Every copy of CorelDRAW comes with 1000 decent quality fonts. An Adobe Creative Cloud subscription gains access to the Adobe Fonts service featuring over 2000 type families from dozens of different type foundries. Google Fonts has dozens of good quality typefaces; some are even Variable Fonts. Speaking of Variable Fonts, some of those are pretty amazing.

Anyway, it takes a real dunder-head to stick Arial in a highway sign layout.

Helvetica indicates the person was in charge of a sign has a little bit of design experience, enough to know that Helvetica is considered preferable to Arial. They also probably know that Helvetica is the designer's default sans-serif of choice, so it's probably safe to go with. They may be familiar with New York subway signage, or some other context that Helvetica is used on signage, and reason that it would make sense to be on a road sign too.

Helvetica has an enduring popularity, given its history. It has a clean, neutral look. But it doesn't go with everything. Sometimes when I see Helvetica in use I suspect the person who did the design work was using a Mac. Various weights of Helvetica and Helvetica Neue have been included in the MacOS (and iOS) for decades. So it can end up being just as bad a default as Arial, even though Helvetica isn't nearly as ugly as Arial.

I've never seen Univers or Akzidenz-Grotesk on a road sign, but I would expect that someone choosing one of those fonts knows full well that they don't have the right font and just don't have a copy of FHWA Series or Clearview installed, so they probably looked through all of the fonts that they did have trying to find something that was a reasonably close match.

Univers and especially Akzidenz Grotesk aren't as widely available as Arial or even Helvetica. If I see either in use I wonder if they're actually knock-off fonts. CorelDRAW has a number of them. Zurich is an imitation of Univers. Gothic 725 is an imitation of Akzidenz Grotesk. You have to go back a really long way to find the real Akzidenz Grotesk bundled with any graphics software. I got the full AG family in Postscript Type 1 format as a bundle with Adobe Illustrator 4 back in the early 1990's. Those are really old T1 font files with limited character sets. I'll have to make conversions of them fairly soon if I want to use them in the future. Adobe is dropping Type 1 font support from all its software over the next year or two.

BTW, I have actually seen Univers (or more likely Zurich) used on a couple turnpike signs back in the 1990's.

[JoePCool14]

RE: The Arial debate

As bad as Arial is, have any of you seen how Arial looks on Chrome OS? It makes Windows Arial look like heavenly in comparison.

[1995hoo]

A comment HTM Duke made in the "Reversible Lanes" thread prompted me to look at Street View for Harry S. Truman Drive in Largo, Maryland, to see what it looks like now, as I haven't been that way in quite a few years.

I found the rather peculiar LGS on the left. Not too informative, is it??!!!!

[jmacswimmer]

A comment HTM Duke made in the "Reversible Lanes" thread prompted me to look at Street View for Harry S. Truman Drive in Largo, Maryland, to see what it looks like now, as I haven't been that way in quite a few years.

I found the rather peculiar LGS on the left. Not too informative, is it??!!!!

And it's not even accurate, there should technically be 3 down arrows

(I'm assuming it used to display [insert name of sports arena demolished in that area]?)

[1995hoo]

A comment HTM Duke made in the "Reversible Lanes" thread prompted me to look at Street View for Harry S. Truman Drive in Largo, Maryland, to see what it looks like now, as I haven't been that way in quite a few years.

I found the rather peculiar LGS on the left. Not too informative, is it??!!!!

And it's not even accurate, there should technically be 3 down arrows

(I'm assuming it used to display [insert name of sports arena demolished in that area]?)

The Capital Centre (also periodically known to some people as USAir Arena or US Airways Arena at various times). I can't say as I recall whether it ever said that, simply because it's just been too long since I last visited the Capital Centre, which was demolished in 2002. The road configuration was different when I was growing up–there was no overpass over Central Avenue for traffic going to the arena and instead you exited to the right via what was more like a glorified jughandle that curved back around and crossed Central Avenue at grade. Also, the rest of the area was far less developed than it is now and I don't recall whether there were other roads intersecting that one prior to reaching the arena parking lots. Historic Aerials has a long gap between 1981 and 1993.

[jmacswimmer]

A little more GSV clicking in the area revealed 2 signs on Largo Center Drive (which intersects Harry S. Truman Drive in the GSV you linked above):

-Another covered-up sign like the one you linked
-A sign that appears to have been forgotten about, displaying "USAir Arena"

[HTM Duke]

A comment HTM Duke made in the "Reversible Lanes" thread prompted me to look at Street View for Harry S. Truman Drive in Largo, Maryland, to see what it looks like now, as I haven't been that way in quite a few years.

I found the rather peculiar LGS on the left. Not too informative, is it??!!!!

And it's not even accurate, there should technically be 3 down arrows

(I'm assuming it used to display [insert name of sports arena demolished in that area]?)

The Capital Centre (also periodically known to some people as USAir Arena or US Airways Arena at various times). I can't say as I recall whether it ever said that, simply because it's just been too long since I last visited the Capital Centre, which was demolished in 2002. The road configuration was different when I was growing up–there was no overpass over Central Avenue for traffic going to the arena and instead you exited to the right via what was more like a glorified jughandle that curved back around and crossed Central Avenue at grade. Also, the rest of the area was far less developed than it is now and I don't recall whether there were other roads intersecting that one prior to reaching the arena parking lots. Historic Aerials has a long gap between 1981 and 1993.

Those blank signs did say USAir Arena, as they were installed as part of a improvement project around 1995 to convert the old jughandle exit into the interchange it is today.  (It could be argued that it was a waste of time and money too, as Abe Pollin shortly thereafter moved the Wizards and Capitals downtown to his then-new MCI Center in 1997.)  Now-replaced signage on MD-214 east originally said USAir Arena as well, and was later greened out or patched over with Largo Town Center.  The same went for signage on the ramp to H S Truman north itself.

A little more GSV clicking in the area revealed 2 signs on Largo Center Drive (which intersects Harry S. Truman Drive in the GSV you linked above):

-Another covered-up sign like the one you linked
-A sign that appears to have been forgotten about, displaying "USAir Arena"

Welp, that cat's out of the bag.  I've actually known about that last sign you linked to for a long time now.  (I found it by accident while cruising along Largo Center Dr about ten years ago.)  I've never linked to it out of a fear that Maryland would send out a crew to finish the job, and remove the final reference to a place that once was.