The Clearview thread

[Scott5114]

I'm surprised it took ODOT this long to make this particular error.

[jakeroot]

However, I actually agree with Jakeroot that BC's signs look quite good, which I think is partly because it's a different country so I'm more forgiving to differences.

I still don't like the look of BC's Clearview signs (or Nova Scotia's, for that matter), though that is an interesting point.  I don't mind Québec's, which tend to look more foreign compared to other places in Canada because of how they handle exit numbers.  That and the fact that they don't use Clearview numerals (which I've grown to dislike more and more over the years).  BC's signs look a lot like US signs but with APL-style arrows (which I'm not exactly fond of either, though I prefer them to diagrammatics).

Is it the typeface? Or the signs themselves?

BC uses some variation of the APL signage (either overhead or post-mounted) at virtually all freeway exits, and many non-freeway junctions as well, but they are to standards that are slightly more relaxed compared to US APL standards. Standards that I think the FHWA could take note of, if they haven't already. BC's APLs are much shorter than standard American APLs, much closer in size to regular down-arrow/no arrow signage).

[Bobby5280]

It's the Goddamn signs. And the idiot hacks culpable for "designing" them -which includes the IDIOT bosses who tell the idiot "designers" what to do, according to IDIOT budget constraints.

Blaming a typeface for a bad sign layout is, in my humble opinion, a statement made by someone who doesn't know a damn thing about how to design a sign. There is zero, I mean absolutely zero anything inherently bad about making a traffic sign layout using Clearview Highway versus the old Series Gothic faces, other than very biased preferences of letter styles. I'll back my statement up with having designed signs very well for a living for close to 30 years.

In terms of advantages, Clearview has a significantly wider character range for one thing. That's something the old FHWA Series Gothic family lacks. Series Gothic is an extremely primitive, limited typeface. And if Terminal Design had gone farther (like it should have) they would have incorporated the additional perks found in the Clearview One family, such as a native Small Capitals character set. That would have foregone the Bull$#!+ fake small caps nonsense found on cardinal direction displays and other outlets of that sort.

A decent number of "road geeks" seem to believe that the old Series Gothic typeface is somehow immune from piss poor graphic design treatment. Well, I'm here to tell you no typeface is immune from abuse via no-talent hacks. I'll give you a good, recent install from ODOT right here:



This is a sign panel ODOT just replaced in response to storm damage. While the new panel is set in "glorious" FHWA Series Gothic, the layout really sucks. The type on the exit panel has been artificially squeezed to fit a confined space. That's something that makes me want to punch whatever computer jockey was involved in making that decision square right in the teeth. I have an intense hatred of fun house mirror distorted type. I don't give a hoot what typeface was used. Any of it sucks. Then there's the fake small caps "East" treatment (garbage). There's a Grand Canyon worth of word space between "Lee" and "Blvd". The kerning on "Duncan" is suspect. I don't know what's going on with the "1/2" element, but it looks wrong. The OK-7 shield looks like yet another new treatment of this highway marker. It actually has me wishing ODOT would go back to the numbers in the circle method. But since the whole thing is set in the beloved "Highway Gothic" any and all errors in layout are supposed to be forgiven, right?

[roadman]

EAST and MILE are in Em, not E.  That's why they look funky.  Space between Lee and Blvd looks to be 32 inches, where it should be 16.  Looks like '1/2' is in Series D instead of E.  And the overall legend is not very well balanced on the panel.  Top margin is too big, bottom margin is too small, and too much space between the route shield and Lee Blvd.

Based on the exit tab, I presume that 7 EAST and Lee Blvd are separate exits.  As such, there should be a partial width horizontal divider to separate the information.

Lastly, unlike with overhead sign structures, it is normally not necessary to fabricate replacement panels for ground-mounted posts to the exact dimensions of the original signs.  So ODOT could have provided a slightly larger sign that is more balanced and meets standard font styles, inter-letter spacings, and margins.

[J N Winkler]

EAST and MILE are in Em, not E.  That's why they look funky.  Space between Lee and Blvd looks to be 32 inches, where it should be 16.  Looks like '1/2' is in Series D instead of E.  And the overall legend is not very well balanced on the panel.  Top margin is too big, bottom margin is too small, and too much space between the route shield and Lee Blvd.

In fairness to the designer, this kind of message is hard to work with because the exit tab legend is so wide while the primary destination legend is so narrow.

I am not going to ding any agency for failing to use true small caps (not a MUTCD requirement, while use of the actual approved typefaces is) or for using Series E Modified rather than Series E for the all-uppercase elements of the message.  That is indeed Series D for both numerator and denominator in the fraction, however.  The vertical spacing appears to me to be correct throughout (should be lowercase loop height between adjacent elements), but the horizontal spacing between vertical border and legend block is wrong (should be uppercase letter height; appears to be lowercase loop height).  There is indeed too much space between "Lee" and "Blvd," but I suspect that is a hack to get the main sign panel width up to the required width for the exit tab.  (It would be unnecessary if the correct legend-to-border horizontal spacing had been used.)

Based on the exit tab, I presume that 7 EAST and Lee Blvd are separate exits.  As such, there should be a partial width horizontal divider to separate the information.

This is I-44 northbound at a partial cloverleaf.  The cross road is Lee Blvd. on both sides but SH 7 only on the right (east) side.  Use of "Duncan" on this panel is suspect since the MUTCD deprecates street and town names on the same sign.  A supplemental guide sign with a message along the lines of "Duncan Exit 36A" would offer better positive guidance since in fact Exit 36B does not lead to Duncan.

[Bobby5280]

Actually this ground mounted sign is positioned North of the Lee Blvd exit, facing "Westbound" (Southbound really) I-44 traffic. The first exit ramp, labeled 36B, goes to WB Lee Blvd. The next ramp (a tight cloverleaf loop) for EB OK-7 is labeled Exit 36A by another ground mounted OK-7 sign just past the 36B ramp. But the actual exit sign just says Exit 36.

In fairness to the designer, this kind of message is hard to work with because the exit tab legend is so wide while the primary destination legend is so narrow.

ODOT is too cheap to use a wide enough panel to fit the message. I'm sort of used to seeing computer-based fonts squeezed or stretched on commercial business signs to maximize limited available space. It's really off-putting to see the bad practice creep into highway signs. I still intensely hate the practice in commercial sign design (especially when default Arial is involved). Commercial sign designers have an enormous choice of type families to use, including many "super families" containing a wide variety of native condensed, compressed, extended and wide widths. The new OpenType Variable font format is opening new possibilities in that regard. Some fonts have width axis sliders that allow the user to change the width properites of the typeface from really compressed to super wide while maintaining the optical balance of letter strokes. OTF Variable in a way ressurects the old Postscript Type 1 Multiple Master format, but combines its concept with OpenType's capability to support a far larger range of characters. Anyway, when it comes to signs for businesses there really is no legit excuse for a sign designer to squeeze and stretch the fonts, not with the giant choices of typeface he has at his fingertips.

I am not going to ding any agency for failing to use true small caps (not a MUTCD requirement, while use of the actual approved typefaces is) or for using Series E Modified rather than Series E for the all-uppercase elements of the message.  That is indeed Series D for both numerator and denominator in the fraction, however.

I thought the use of large cap/small cap treatment was a requirement for cardinal direction listings. Even if the treatment is not mandated I see it in use everywhere. Neither Series Gothic or Clearview Highway has native small cap character sets. There are various other deficiencies. That's one reason why I'm especially harsh to Series Gothic in my judgment. It's almost the year 2020. Modern typeface development is so much more advanced now. The OpenType format has been around nearly 20 years. The format can support any character set needed by typefaces intended for traffic sign use. If Series Gothic is going to continue to be the choice for traffic sign design then the type family sorely needs to be updated.

[vdeane]

However, I actually agree with Jakeroot that BC's signs look quite good, which I think is partly because it's a different country so I'm more forgiving to differences.

I still don't like the look of BC's Clearview signs (or Nova Scotia's, for that matter), though that is an interesting point.  I don't mind Québec's, which tend to look more foreign compared to other places in Canada because of how they handle exit numbers.  That and the fact that they don't use Clearview numerals (which I've grown to dislike more and more over the years).  BC's signs look a lot like US signs but with APL-style arrows (which I'm not exactly fond of either, though I prefer them to diagrammatics).

Is it the typeface? Or the signs themselves?

BC uses some variation of the APL signage (either overhead or post-mounted) at virtually all freeway exits, and many non-freeway junctions as well, but they are to standards that are slightly more relaxed compared to US APL standards. Standards that I think the FHWA could take note of, if they haven't already. BC's APLs are much shorter than standard American APLs, much closer in size to regular down-arrow/no arrow signage).

I do admit that the APL-style arrows aren't my cup of tea, though I could have sworn I saw a picture of BC signs in FHWA font that I thought were more aesthetically pleasing.  As I mentioned, I'm pretty sure it's the numbers.  I don't mind Clearview destination legends so long as they're properly proportioned (ie, not extra large like many states like to do).

It's the Goddamn signs. And the idiot hacks culpable for "designing" them -which includes the IDIOT bosses who tell the idiot "designers" what to do, according to IDIOT budget constraints.

Blaming a typeface for a bad sign layout is, in my humble opinion, a statement made by someone who doesn't know a damn thing about how to design a sign. There is zero, I mean absolutely zero anything inherently bad about making a traffic sign layout using Clearview Highway versus the old Series Gothic faces, other than very biased preferences of letter styles. I'll back my statement up with having designed signs very well for a living for close to 30 years.

In terms of advantages, Clearview has a significantly wider character range for one thing. That's something the old FHWA Series Gothic family lacks. Series Gothic is an extremely primitive, limited typeface. And if Terminal Design had gone farther (like it should have) they would have incorporated the additional perks found in the Clearview One family, such as a native Small Capitals character set. That would have foregone the Bull$#!+ fake small caps nonsense found on cardinal direction displays and other outlets of that sort.

A decent number of "road geeks" seem to believe that the old Series Gothic typeface is somehow immune from piss poor graphic design treatment. Well, I'm here to tell you no typeface is immune from abuse via no-talent hacks. I'll give you a good, recent install from ODOT right here:



This is a sign panel ODOT just replaced in response to storm damage. While the new panel is set in "glorious" FHWA Series Gothic, the layout really sucks. The type on the exit panel has been artificially squeezed to fit a confined space. That's something that makes me want to punch whatever computer jockey was involved in making that decision square right in the teeth. I have an intense hatred of fun house mirror distorted type. I don't give a hoot what typeface was used. Any of it sucks. Then there's the fake small caps "East" treatment (garbage). There's a Grand Canyon worth of word space between "Lee" and "Blvd". The kerning on "Duncan" is suspect. I don't know what's going on with the "1/2" element, but it looks wrong. The OK-7 shield looks like yet another new treatment of this highway marker. It actually has me wishing ODOT would go back to the numbers in the circle method. But since the whole thing is set in the beloved "Highway Gothic" any and all errors in layout are supposed to be forgiven, right?

Never said FHWA was immune from issues (see: cRaiG cOunTY), but it does seem like Clearview is more likely to become ugly because of said issues than FHWA for some reason.  With respect to the sign you posted, aesthetically it doesn't look terrible.  I might not have even noticed anything was up had you not posted about it.  Then again, I tend to evaluate more on aesthetics than technical minutiae.  I'm not a font geek, just someone who wants the road signs she drives by to look nice.

That significantly wider character range is probably why it's spread though Canada as much as it has (particularly Québec); the lack of built-in support for accents doesn't matter much if all the signs are in English, but it does if you need to make them in French.

[hbelkins]

Regarding the proprietary nature of Clearview, I recently saw something from FHWA regarding the use of patented devices. I can't remember the details, though. At first I thought it pertained to RRFBs, since there was an issue with them, but I wonder if the Clearview font didn't also have something to do with it?

[JoePCool14]

This sign is bad, yes. But imagine how much worse it would be if everything was in Clearview.

[DaBigE]

Regarding the proprietary nature of Clearview, I recently saw something from FHWA regarding the use of patented devices. I can't remember the details, though. At first I thought it pertained to RRFBs, since there was an issue with them, but I wonder if the Clearview font didn't also have something to do with it?

Yes, it was with RRFBs - that is why the IA was initially pulled (when the lawsuits started). Then, another company bought the RRFB patent and turned it over to public domain and the IA was reinstated/recreated.

[vdeane]

My understanding is that the patent issue was regarding some form of work zone traffic control.  As for RRFBs,, my understanding there is that a new flash pattern was developed that was unencumbered by the patent.  As for Clearview, wouldn't that be copyright rather than a patent?

[Revive 755]

Didn't the revised flash pattern come prior to the pulling of the interim approval though?  My understanding is closer to what DaBigE states:  The patent was bought out and turned over to the public domain.  IIRC the patent had also been broad enough FHWA couldn't revise the interim approval to use more traditional circular beacons with rapid flashing pattern.

[Bobby5280]

As for Clearview, wouldn't that be copyright rather than a patent?

Correct. Commercial typefaces are copyrighted. But it's kind of funny how the copyright protection works.

You can copyright the name of the typeface and you can copyright the specific font data. But you cannot copyright the abstract letter shapes. For instance if someone hand draws some lettering, mimicking a certain typeface, but didn't buy a license for it he wouldn't get in any trouble for copyright infringement. So anyone can create a digital look-alike "clone" of any typeface, even if it's an expensive commercial typeface (such as HTF Gotham for instance). However, the person intending to create the look-alike clone version can't simply use the existing font files verbatim and re-name them. That absolutely will get someone in very hot water legally speaking.

Back in the 1990's Adobe successfully sued a company selling "Key Fonts" packages on CD; the company literally copied an edition of Adobe Font Folio, the company's entire font library which retailed for around $7000. They re-named the font files but didn't change any of the actual font data (the outlines, metrics, etc), then sold them on CD-ROMs that cost around $30. Pretty obvious copyright infringement there.

A lot of different companies will sell their own take on a particular type family. Futura is a good example. A bunch of different type foundries sell their own take on it. They all look nearly identical, but if you set a text string in these different versions and then align them on top of each other you'll see a big amount of subtle differences. The foundries add little acronyms to the font name to be different enough legally speaking, or they can just go with a completely different name. Bitstream's knock-off of Helvetica is "Swiss 721 BT." There's Nimbus Sans, CG Triumvirate and a whole bunch of others.

It's kind of surprising there's not more knock-offs of Series Gothic, or more typefaces (like Font Bureau's Interstate) that improve the appearance and expand upon the character set.

[stevashe]

In terms of advantages, Clearview has a significantly wider character range for one thing. That's something the old FHWA Series Gothic family lacks. Series Gothic is an extremely primitive, limited typeface. And if Terminal Design had gone farther (like it should have) they would have incorporated the additional perks found in the Clearview One family, such as a native Small Capitals character set. That would have foregone the Bull$#!+ fake small caps nonsense found on cardinal direction displays and other outlets of that sort.

It's true that Clearview certainly has the upper hand on font features, but as an engineer, the only thing I care about is how well the font does its job, and the job of any font used on a traffic sign is to accurately and quickly convey information to drivers. In that respect, Clearview has been shown to be, at best, the same as Highway Gothic, and even then this requires enlarging the lowercase letters. This alone should be reason for the FHWA to disallow the font.

As for all the features missing from Highway Gothic? None of these are necessary for designing signs to current MUTCD standards. Special characters are neither used nor allowed, as mentioned previously. And small caps are indeed not required for cardinal directions as J N Winkler said; rather, these are specified by a larger letter height for the first letter (See tables 2E-4 and 2E-5 in the MUTCD, pg. 190-191). So yeah, it's not real small caps, but it isn't meant to be either. This may be a graphic design flaw but for a sign whose primary function is not to look pretty, it makes no difference. And if you are need of extra characters for some other application, the Interstate font should be more than capable of that, no?

I understand you are a graphic designer and such issues are important to you, but you seem to misunderstand that designing a sign is quite different from an engineering perspective compared to graphic design. The primary goal of any type of engineering is to optimize a design to maximize or minimize certain desired variables. In roadway engineering this often involves maximizing capacity, safety, speed, etc. and minimizing environmental impacts, space used, cost, etc. This is why you may end up with signs that do not look as good as they could, since if sacrificing looks reduces the cost but does not decrease functionality, most of the time this trade-off will be made to avoid spending extra money unnecessarily. Now, if corners are cut by violating standards, that is another story...

With respect to the example sign you posted and other bad signs from Oklahoma, it looks to me that most if not all of these errors are due to sloppy fabrication, which would be a fault of the sign manufacturer and not the designer, could be wrong though...

I still don't like the look of BC's Clearview signs (or Nova Scotia's, for that matter), though that is an interesting point.  I don't mind Québec's, which tend to look more foreign compared to other places in Canada because of how they handle exit numbers.  That and the fact that they don't use Clearview numerals (which I've grown to dislike more and more over the years).  BC's signs look a lot like US signs but with APL-style arrows (which I'm not exactly fond of either, though I prefer them to diagrammatics).

Is it the typeface? Or the signs themselves?

BC uses some variation of the APL signage (either overhead or post-mounted) at virtually all freeway exits, and many non-freeway junctions as well, but they are to standards that are slightly more relaxed compared to US APL standards. Standards that I think the FHWA could take note of, if they haven't already. BC's APLs are much shorter than standard American APLs, much closer in size to regular down-arrow/no arrow signage).

I'm not a big fan of APLs either, however I like BC's much better with the arrows they use.

[machias]

It's the Goddamn signs. And the idiot hacks culpable for "designing" them -which includes the IDIOT bosses who tell the idiot "designers" what to do, according to IDIOT budget constraints.

Blaming a typeface for a bad sign layout is, in my humble opinion, a statement made by someone who doesn't know a damn thing about how to design a sign. There is zero, I mean absolutely zero anything inherently bad about making a traffic sign layout using Clearview Highway versus the old Series Gothic faces, other than very biased preferences of letter styles. I'll back my statement up with having designed signs very well for a living for close to 30 years.

In terms of advantages, Clearview has a significantly wider character range for one thing. That's something the old FHWA Series Gothic family lacks. Series Gothic is an extremely primitive, limited typeface. And if Terminal Design had gone farther (like it should have) they would have incorporated the additional perks found in the Clearview One family, such as a native Small Capitals character set. That would have foregone the Bull$#!+ fake small caps nonsense found on cardinal direction displays and other outlets of that sort.

A decent number of "road geeks" seem to believe that the old Series Gothic typeface is somehow immune from piss poor graphic design treatment. Well, I'm here to tell you no typeface is immune from abuse via no-talent hacks. I'll give you a good, recent install from ODOT right here:



This is a sign panel ODOT just replaced in response to storm damage. While the new panel is set in "glorious" FHWA Series Gothic, the layout really sucks. The type on the exit panel has been artificially squeezed to fit a confined space. That's something that makes me want to punch whatever computer jockey was involved in making that decision square right in the teeth. I have an intense hatred of fun house mirror distorted type. I don't give a hoot what typeface was used. Any of it sucks. Then there's the fake small caps "East" treatment (garbage). There's a Grand Canyon worth of word space between "Lee" and "Blvd". The kerning on "Duncan" is suspect. I don't know what's going on with the "1/2" element, but it looks wrong. The OK-7 shield looks like yet another new treatment of this highway marker. It actually has me wishing ODOT would go back to the numbers in the circle method. But since the whole thing is set in the beloved "Highway Gothic" any and all errors in layout are supposed to be forgiven, right?

There's nothing wrong with this sign. It conveys the message intended to be read by the motorist and looks fine. As long as it does its job, looks professional, and isn't an impetus for accidents at this location, it's fine.

When a motorist has to squint or can't comprehend a message because of the layout or lettering or anything, then we have a problem. There is nothing wrong with this sign.

[roadman]

There's nothing wrong with this sign. It conveys the message intended to be read by the motorist and looks fine. As long as it does its job, looks professional, and isn't an impetus for accidents at this location, it's fine.

When a motorist has to squint or can't comprehend a message because of the layout or lettering or anything, then we have a problem. There is nothing wrong with this sign.

Based on that criteria, you are correct - with one exception.  As 7 East and Lee Blvd are separate exits, the information really should be separated by a partial horizontal divider for clarity.

[Scott5114]

There's nothing wrong with this sign. It conveys the message intended to be read by the motorist and looks fine. As long as it does its job, looks professional, and isn't an impetus for accidents at this location, it's fine.

When a motorist has to squint or can't comprehend a message because of the layout or lettering or anything, then we have a problem. There is nothing wrong with this sign.

You're a bit too quick to let ODOT off the hook on this one–if this was a one-off panel with minor errors done by KDOT, MoDOT, or TxDOT, I'd be inclined to agree with you. However, Oklahoma signage (both from ODOT and OTA) is riddled with panels that do not do their job and do not look professional. So this panel is a small part of a statewide pattern of design failures. Bobby's justified in pointing out that if ODOT cannot even get the small things like "don't stretch fonts" right (which, by the way, is specifically disallowed by the MUTCD), it speaks to their larger problem of getting the big ones right.

[Bobby5280]

It's true that Clearview certainly has the upper hand on font features, but as an engineer, the only thing I care about is how well the font does its job, and the job of any font used on a traffic sign is to accurately and quickly convey information to drivers. In that respect, Clearview has been shown to be, at best, the same as Highway Gothic, and even then this requires enlarging the lowercase letters. This alone should be reason for the FHWA to disallow the font.

If we want to get into the nit-picking on optical performance, if Clearview should be dis-allowed for highway sign use, then Series E/M needs to go as well. By the way, the lowercase letters in Clearview were originally designed with a larger x-height for lowercase characters. They're not supposed to be enlarged further by someone creating a sign layout. The larger x-height was done in part for Clearview to comply with MUTCD rules requiring lowercase letters to have an x-height at least 75% of the capital letter M-height. The lowercase characters in Series Gothic only barely comply with that rule if you measure the taller, round lowercase letters like "o." That 75% rule is probably something they should have only told to type foundries. I've seen way too many highway signs where the lowercase characters were decreased to 75% of their original height because that badly worded rule. We have street name signs all over my town infected with that stupidity (and they're set in Series Gothic).

I understand you are a graphic designer and such issues are important to you, but you seem to misunderstand that designing a sign is quite different from an engineering perspective compared to graphic design.

Creating typefaces for various kinds of graphic design use has far more intentions than just making letters that look pretty. Many typefaces are created for specific uses, from type-setting novels, performing well on digital screens or working well on signs. I'm certain that if Series Gothic was objectively tested against a wide variety of advanced OpenType sans serif families it would not win the contest. Neither would Clearview. In the end nostalgia is by far the primary reason why Series Gothic hangs on and why there is such a hostile attitude toward Clearview or any other typeface that would challenge Series Gothic's place on green highway signs.

With respect to the example sign you posted and other bad signs from Oklahoma, it looks to me that most if not all of these errors are due to sloppy fabrication, which would be a fault of the sign manufacturer and not the designer, could be wrong though...

Lettering can only be artificially stretched or squeezed in the computer. It doesn't happen after the reflective vinyl letters are cut.

One suspicion I do have that does involve fabrication is the possibility ODOT's sign department may be cutting out vinyl letters individually and having them applied to signs individually. I've seen sign panels here in Lawton where letters of different sizes were applied in the same word, even with some letters crooked. No commercial sign company does stupid nonsense like that. Peeling and sticking letters to a big green panel one character at a time can result in very wacky letter and word spacing. It's far better to plot out entire lines of copy, release tape the whole thing and apply it to the panel in one piece. Even if there is a lot of vinyl and release tape wasted to negative space.

[jakeroot]

In the end nostalgia is by far the primary reason why Series Gothic hangs on and why there is such a hostile attitude toward Clearview or any other typeface that would challenge Series Gothic's place on green highway signs.

Agreed with you on that. I have a really hard time believing that, even if the two fonts were equal in every measure (cost, ease of use), most wouldn't gravitate towards Highway Gothic on account of its age and "nostalgia" factor.

I, for one, would love to see the Tobias Frere-Jones'-developed Interstate typeface developed beyond Series E. It seems like a logical direction, assuming Clearview and/or any updated version of Clearview is on the way out. Obviously it would need to be adopted into public domain; not sure how Mr Frere-Jones would feel about that!

[Scott5114]

That 75% rule is probably something they should have only told to type foundries. I've seen way too many highway signs where the lowercase characters were decreased to 75% of their original height because that badly worded rule. We have street name signs all over my town infected with that stupidity (and they're set in Series Gothic).

They don't even have to go that far. Since the fonts are dimensioned out in the Standard Highway Signs book, there's no need to actually specify the height, since it's inherent to the dimensions of the characters. When the next MUTCD is under review, I plan to leave a public comment asking for this rule to be stricken or revised.

One suspicion I do have that does involve fabrication is the possibility ODOT's sign department may be cutting out vinyl letters individually and having them applied to signs individually. I've seen sign panels here in Lawton where letters of different sizes were applied in the same word, even with some letters crooked. No commercial sign company does stupid nonsense like that. Peeling and sticking letters to a big green panel one character at a time can result in very wacky letter and word spacing. It's far better to plot out entire lines of copy, release tape the whole thing and apply it to the panel in one piece. Even if there is a lot of vinyl and release tape wasted to negative space.

I guarantee that this is happening, because I have seen more than one panel where individual characters have been applied upside-down; these are hard-to-spot ones like X and H, where the asymmetry is on the wrong side (the strokes meeting below the midline on X and the crossbar closer to the bottom than the top on the H). That being said, I imagine this practice does save a considerable amount in material cost. According to an Ohio DOT spreadsheet I found on Google, diamond-grade sheeting was $1.24 per square foot from 3M and $1.46 from Avery-Dennison in 2008. You might have access to more up-to-date pricing.

Agreed with you on that. I have a really hard time believing that, even if the two fonts were equal in every measure (cost, ease of use), most wouldn't gravitate towards Highway Gothic on account of its age and "nostalgia" factor.

Personally, it's just Clearview that I don't like. I've been doing a decent amount of sign work lately for a D&D game...not going to get into the details on that unless someone asks... using FHWA Series, Clearview, RutaCL, and Trafikkalfabetet. I actually prefer Ruta and Trafikkalfabetet over FHWA Series. Both, though, lack the condensation options that the American typefaces have. In the case of Traffik, Norway does not seem to be particularly bothered by this because the entire Norwegian sign design language is built around accommodating the typeface, but attempting to use it as a drop-in replacement for FHWA Series in the U.S. would know what true suffering is.

At this point, a good chunk of my distaste for Clearview is borne from Meeker & Associates' corruption.

[DaBigE]

I understand you are a graphic designer and such issues are important to you, but you seem to misunderstand that designing a sign is quite different from an engineering perspective compared to graphic design.

Creating typefaces for various kinds of graphic design use has far more intentions than just making letters that look pretty. Many typefaces are created for specific uses, from type-setting novels, performing well on digital screens or working well on signs. I'm certain that if Series Gothic was objectively tested against a wide variety of advanced OpenType sans serif families it would not win the contest. Neither would Clearview. In the end nostalgia is by far the primary reason why Series Gothic hangs on and why there is such a hostile attitude toward Clearview or any other typeface that would challenge Series Gothic's place on green highway signs.

It's not just nostalgia, overhead costs of switching fonts is a far bigger reason, IMO. It costs time and money to convert all the existing standard details and templates. In theory, the user cost would also include retaining of designers on how to properly use the new font, but we all know too many will attempt to use it in a plug-and-play format. If there is no significant difference or fatal flaw in the existing fonts (drivers aren't crashing due to letter halation), no one is going to want to spend the money to convert something they don't have to.

At this point, a good chunk of my distaste for Clearview is borne from Meeker & Associates' corruption.

^ This.

[Bobby5280]

I, for one, would love to see the Tobias Frere-Jones'-developed Interstate typeface developed beyond Series E. It seems like a logical direction, assuming Clearview and/or any updated version of Clearview is on the way out. Obviously it would need to be adopted into public domain; not sure how Mr Frere-Jones would feel about that!

The Interstate type family has been so over-used in advertising design that it has grown kind of tiresome. I don't expect Frere-Jones to re-visit that family any time soon. The same thing is threatening to happen to his even better Gotham type family, which is by far one of the best "neutral" typefaces designed in the past 30 years. And then there's the split between Frere-Jones and Jonathan Hoefler (who basically screwed Frere-Jones out of a fortune, claiming Frere-Jones was little more than a lowly employee rather than a founder of H&FJ). Hoefler still "owns" the rights to Gotham. So, Gotham will probably fall by the wayside soon as well.

The Interstate family has just 3 widths (normal, condensed & compressed), but a very wide variety of weights for each width sub-family, from hairline to ultra-black. Nevertheless, the curves of Interstate are far more fluid and refined than the clunky nature of Series Gothic. Despite the superior appearance of Interstate, it was not intended for traffic sign use.

In a perfect world, someone would re-visit and expand upon Interstate, adding more widths (including extended and wide versions). An OpenType Variable version would actually be really good. That would provide enough latitude in both width and weight axis to fit any traffic sign need. Currently OTF Variable fonts are pretty rare. Adobe has a few bundled into Creative Cloud applications like Illustrator and InDesign. Windows 10 bundles in the Bahnschrift typeface.

I guarantee that this is happening, because I have seen more than one panel where individual characters have been applied upside-down; these are hard-to-spot ones like X and H, where the asymmetry is on the wrong side (the strokes meeting below the midline on X and the crossbar closer to the bottom than the top on the H).

Letters like "C", "O" & "S" can be a challenge to apply correctly doing so a single letter at a time without reference lines drawn over the release tape to establish the correct vertical orientation as well as the baseline.

That being said, I imagine this practice does save a considerable amount in material cost. According to an Ohio DOT spreadsheet I found on Google, diamond-grade sheeting was $1.24 per square foot from 3M and $1.46 from Avery-Dennison in 2008. You might have access to more up-to-date pricing.

The type III sheeting is expensive. But ODOT isn't using it on the lettering. They've been using cheap, "engineer's grade" white reflective vinyl. There's a bunch of it on green panels around here. Yet it looks like they're slapping the letters on the panels one at a time anyway. For what ever money they're saving on material costs, I guarantee they're blowing more than that on all the extra time & labor needed to apply letters one at a time. We have a Rolls-Roller table in our vinyl room that can lay down a big sheet of vinyl onto a sign panel in one big sweep. No bubbles, wrinkles or anything, and it's straight. It's one of the best investments we've ever made.

It's not just nostalgia, overhead costs of switching fonts is a far bigger reason, IMO. It costs time and money to convert all the existing standard details and templates. In theory, the user cost would also include retaining of designers on how to properly use the new font, but we all know too many will attempt to use it in a plug-and-play format. If there is no significant difference or fatal flaw in the existing fonts (drivers aren't crashing due to letter halation), no one is going to want to spend the money to convert something they don't have to.

In this case the state agencies that wanted to switch to Clearview already spent the money to do so.

As to the notion of "retraining designers," they must be using people with little if any design expertise or talent if they can't handle the differences between two type families. Considering I work with thousands of typefaces (including many subtle variations of the same typeface) and hundreds of ever changing branding programs in my work I really have zero sympathy over that issue. I see a LOT of design travesties happening on American highway signs simply because the people composing the sign layouts or bosses above them blatantly ignore the laws of geometry (hence most "neutered" Interstate shield signs sucking way way out loud).

[vdeane]

My distase is a combination of asethetics and Meeker corruption.  Honestly, Clearview just isn't a look I enjoyed.  I found a couple of locations where it's easy to compare between the two.

Location 1: I-90 EB approaching I-290
Clearview (before): http://nysroads.com/photos.php?route=i90&state=NY&file=101_2625.JPG
FHWA (after): http://nysroads.com/photos.php?route=i90&state=NY&file=102_0151.JPG

I find the FHWA signs to be far more aesthetically pleasing here than the Clearview ones.  At least the numbers in the interstate shield aren't Clearview.  In BC, even route numbers use it.

Bonus sign (FHWA, even older, but not the exact same spot): http://nysroads.com/photos.php?route=i90&state=NY&file=100_3834.JPG

Location 2: I-90 WB approaching Ripley (near PA)

Clearview: http://nysroads.com/photos.php?route=i90&state=NY&file=101_4486.JPG
FHWA: http://nysroads.com/photos.php?route=i90&state=NY&file=101_4488.JPG

In this case, it's not the same sign over time, and the Clearview doesn't look as bad as in the previous example because the numbers in the exit tab are still FHWA.  I could live with Clearview more if all the signs were like this (even with the "1 MILE" in Clearview), though I still prefer FHWA.

Bonus yucktastic Thruway Clearview signs (the latter of which qualifies for the worst of roadsigns thread; maybe that sign biased me against BC, since it is similar in many ways, though with design errors):
http://nysroads.com/photos.php?route=i90&state=NY&file=100_6731.JPG
http://nysroads.com/photos.php?route=i90&state=NY&file=101_2429.JPG

As to the notion of "retraining designers," they must be using people with little if any design expertise or talent if they can't handle the differences between two type families. Considering I work with thousands of typefaces (including many subtle variations of the same typeface) and hundreds of ever changing branding programs in my work I really have zero sympathy over that issue. I see a LOT of design travesties happening on American highway signs simply because the people composing the sign layouts or bosses above them blatantly ignore the laws of geometry (hence most "neutered" Interstate shield signs sucking way way out loud).

DOTs and similar agencies aren't hiring graphic designers to do sign plans.  Nor are they using "branding programs".  Around here, we use GuideSign, which is a CADD program for sign design, not a graphic designer program.

[DaBigE]

As to the notion of "retraining designers," they must be using people with little if any design expertise or talent if they can't handle the differences between two type families. Considering I work with thousands of typefaces (including many subtle variations of the same typeface) and hundreds of ever changing branding programs in my work I really have zero sympathy over that issue. I see a LOT of design travesties happening on American highway signs simply because the people composing the sign layouts or bosses above them blatantly ignore the laws of geometry (hence most "neutered" Interstate shield signs sucking way way out loud).

DOTs and similar agencies aren't hiring graphic designers to do sign plans.  Nor are they using "branding programs".  Around here, we use GuideSign, which is a CADD program for sign design, not a graphic designer program.

I think if Bobby5280 cracked open GuideSign or SignCAD he would be in for a rude awakening.

[Bobby5280]

DOTs and similar agencies aren't hiring graphic designers to do sign plans.  Nor are they using "branding programs".  Around here, we use GuideSign, which is a CADD program for sign design, not a graphic designer program.

Principals of graphic design, tyopography, layout, etc still apply regardless of what kind of software is used. And shitty looking signs are no less shitty looking because an engineer composed it rather than a graphic designer.

Regarding "branding programs," many large companies have very specific brand guidelines manuals and specific manuals regarding signage that must be followed strictly. The manuals vary from company to company, but I promise they have a lot of very nit picky details.

In my shop we use a pretty wide variety of software for sign design and production -industry specific programs like Flexi, EnRoute, Onyx Thrive, RasterLink Pro as well as mainstream graphics applications like Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop and CorelDRAW. I've seen these implied digs at mainstream design programs before, but I've used CorelDRAW to design signs much bigger and far more elaborate than any highway sign.

The only advantage GuideSign has is a big library of traffic sign templates to semi-automate the process of composing a very specific category of signs. For my sign design purposes using GuideSign would suck for all the advanced typographic features and other creative features it lacks compared to those mainstream graphic designer programs.