The Clearview thread

[mjb2002]

I made a FHWA, Helvetica and Clearview version of possible replacements for the current all caps street sign along the street where we live.







The signs are one foot in height and of various lengths.

[mightyace]

^^^

On the Clearview signs, I never noticed before this that the lower case "L" is taller than the upper case letters.  That, IMHO, is a major style violation! 

[J N Winkler]

On the Clearview signs, I never noticed before this that the lower case "L" is taller than the upper case letters.  That, IMHO, is a major style violation! 

I am not fussed about it personally, but it is a major reason it is so hard to design Clearview signs in accord with freeway guide sign design rules (the same rules apply to signs using Clearview and FHWA Series E Modified, except of course that Clearview does not have lowercase loop height equal to three-quarters capital letter height, so you just have to use three-quarters capital letter height measured from top to bottom of capital letters only for vertical spacing).  Lowercase i is even worse than lowercase l, which is actually the same height as other lowercase letters with ascenders, like d.  When I have to combine Clearview text blocks, I correct for the excess height of the lowercase letters with ascenders with separate scripts for l, d, etc. and for i.

[roadfro]

On the Clearview signs, I never noticed before this that the lower case "L" is taller than the upper case letters.  That, IMHO, is a major style violation! 

IIRC, that is one of the "selling points" of Clearview. Several of the lowercase letters are taller than uppercase letter heights... I think this goes towards improved legibility at a distance.

[mightyace]

^^^

That lends further support to my theory that many of the things that make Clearview ugly to most of us are done on purpose!

Because it is not normal, it stands out and draws the eye to it.

As the main goal is readability, it succeeds.

But, does it really have to be readability vs. aesthetics?  I think not.

[agentsteel53]

That lends further support to my theory that many of the things that make Clearview ugly to most of us are done on purpose!

Because it is not normal, it stands out and draws the eye to it.

As the main goal is readability, it succeeds.

But, does it really have to be readability vs. aesthetics?  I think not.

bear in mind, also, that Clearview tends to look a lot better in the field than in our photos and our diagrams that we discuss here.  The reason is mainly halation - some of the more odd stroke variations actually are designed to cancel out, given standards of reflectivity and intended reading distance.  

this is especially noticeable at night.  I've always disliked Clearview during the day, but at night it isn't nearly as bothersome.

[1995hoo]

I don't mind Clearview in general, but the signs shown in the pictures below are hideous. They're all relatively new Clearview signs found on VA-27 between the Pentagon and the interchange with US-50. The initial capital letters are simply way too big compared to all the others. When I see the US-50 sign shown in the third picture, my eye sees the "WFC" more than any of the other text. The signs in the fourth picture, while still ugly, are in my view the least offensive of this bunch because they have the fewest words per sign. That is, I think having multiple disproportionately large uppercase letters on multiple lines on a single sign draws too much attention to the uppercase letters at the expense of the rest of the sign.

In particular, compare "Clarendon" as seen here to the points made by mightyace and J N Winkler further up the thread about some of the lowercase letters being taller than the uppercase.

[Alex]

I don't mind Clearview in general, but the signs shown in the pictures below are hideous. They're all relatively new Clearview signs found on VA-27 between the Pentagon and the interchange with US-50. The initial capital letters are simply way too big compared to all the others. When I see the US-50 sign shown in the third picture, my eye sees the "WFC" more than any of the other text. The signs in the fourth picture, while still ugly, are in my view the least offensive of this bunch because they have the fewest words per sign. That is, I think having multiple disproportionately large uppercase letters on multiple lines on a single sign draws too much attention to the uppercase letters at the expense of the rest of the sign.

In particular, compare "Clarendon" as seen here to the points made by mightyace and J N Winkler further up the thread about some of the lowercase letters being taller than the uppercase.

All four of those examples look like garbage to me as well. Similar, but worse Clearview spacing (which I have mentioned before):

[1995hoo]

^^^^

I don't like the way the lowercase letters aren't aligned with the bases of the uppercase letters on that sign. Or, put differently, if the bottom of the lowercase letters is the baseline (that is, where you'd put your letters if you were writing on lined paper), the uppercase letters seem to be straddling that baseline. Yuk. The numerators on the fractions are too close to the main numbers as well. I've seen at least one Clearview sign around here where they didn't use a fraction and instead made it the way we commonly type fractions, i.e., 1/2, but off the top of my head I can't remember which sign that was. I think the fractions on the signs I posted above look OK, but the ones on the sign you posted are hideous.

[formulanone]

To me, Clearview isn't awful, but those "l"s remind me of why I can't stand it; it's just like the Windows font "Trebuchet":

They don't lead into the next letter, but they distract, in my opinion. The the finishing "stroke" of the "a" and the "d" aren't the same, which is also annoying. Otherwise, Clearview does look quite crisp when spaced properly; I see it outside of Florida, and sometimes it looks right, other times...not so much.

That said, I like my "traditional" highway fonts, like FHWA. Helvetica looks okay, but I think it doesn't work well for a large block of text, or when viewed at speed.

[agentsteel53]

Clearview is pretty bad, but it is worlds ahead of Helvetica/Arial/Univers/Grotesque*/etc.

*about the least grotesque font you can imagine.  no idea why they call it that.

[Kacie Jane]

I don't mind Clearview in general, but the signs shown in the pictures below are hideous. They're all relatively new Clearview signs found on VA-27 between the Pentagon and the interchange with US-50. The initial capital letters are simply way too big compared to all the others. When I see the US-50 sign shown in the third picture, my eye sees the "WFC" more than any of the other text. The signs in the fourth picture, while still ugly, are in my view the least offensive of this bunch because they have the fewest words per sign. That is, I think having multiple disproportionately large uppercase letters on multiple lines on a single sign draws too much attention to the uppercase letters at the expense of the rest of the sign.

In particular, compare "Clarendon" as seen here to the points made by mightyace and J N Winkler further up the thread about some of the lowercase letters being taller than the uppercase.

Are the capital letters also heavier in addition to being bigger, or is that just an illusion of them being taller?  My first instinct was to say that the capital letters were bolded rather than taller, but then I realized the L in Clarendon, and I was set straight.

Either way, they're ugly.

[vdeane]

*about the least grotesque font you can imagine.  no idea why they call it that.

Maybe it was the first?

[1995hoo]

I don't mind Clearview in general, but the signs shown in the pictures below are hideous. They're all relatively new Clearview signs found on VA-27 between the Pentagon and the interchange with US-50. The initial capital letters are simply way too big compared to all the others. When I see the US-50 sign shown in the third picture, my eye sees the "WFC" more than any of the other text. The signs in the fourth picture, while still ugly, are in my view the least offensive of this bunch because they have the fewest words per sign. That is, I think having multiple disproportionately large uppercase letters on multiple lines on a single sign draws too much attention to the uppercase letters at the expense of the rest of the sign.

In particular, compare "Clarendon" as seen here to the points made by mightyace and J N Winkler further up the thread about some of the lowercase letters being taller than the uppercase.

Are the capital letters also heavier in addition to being bigger, or is that just an illusion of them being taller?  My first instinct was to say that the capital letters were bolded rather than taller, but then I realized the L in Clarendon, and I was set straight.

Either way, they're ugly.

I thought the same thing–they look like boldface. I didn't mention it because I wanted to see if anyone else thought the same and I didn't want to plant the idea in anyone's mind. Those letters almost remind me of the "drop cap" style used in some books to start chapters (except that they don't drop below the baseline)–you know, the style where the chapter starts with one very big capital letter at the start of the first paragraph.

[J N Winkler]

Are the capital letters also heavier in addition to being bigger, or is that just an illusion of them being taller?  My first instinct was to say that the capital letters were bolded rather than taller, but then I realized the L in Clarendon, and I was set straight.

Either way, they're ugly.

Nope, the capital letters aren't bolded--they just look that way by comparison with the lowercase letters because they are taller and so have greater stroke width.

If the capital letters were sized in correct proportion to the lowercase letters, the l in "Clarendon" would be taller than the C.

This mismatch is not unique to Clearview.  There are a lot of poorly trained sign designers out there who misunderstand the MUTCD's references to different sizes for uppercase and lowercase letters and they make this mistake in Series E Modified as well as Clearview.

[hbelkins]

Clearview is pretty bad, but it is worlds ahead of Helvetica/Arial/Univers/Grotesque*/etc.

Why the dislike of Helvetica/Arial/Univers?

I much prefer sans serif fonts to serif fonts, especially in large size applications such as signs and newspaper headlines. Much cleaner and easier (for me, at least) to read than serif fonts.

[agentsteel53]

Why the dislike of Helvetica/Arial/Univers?

I just find it a generally unattractive font, and badly overused.  I actually don't think Helvetica is any better-looking than Arial; there's a few subtle differences here and there but for the most part it's identical. 

FHWA 1948 Series D is a significantly better-looking font than Helvetica, for a similar width.

[Scott5114]

Helvetica and Arial can look fine in certain situations. Like in an office, having all of the door signs in Helvetica is appropriate. All of the incidental signage where I work (stuff like No Smoking signs, "This Window Closed", informational signs, section name signs, etc) are done in white on black with hollow stroke Arial (like you set the stroke to white in Inkscape but didn't set a fill). It actually looks pretty classy.

Put Arial or Helvetica on a road sign and it's just out of place. I think Helvetica looks best in black and white. It's all business It doesn't play as well with bright colors like you would see on a road sign.

And I'll agree that a big part of how good Clearview looks is what state is using it. Texas's Clearview implementation makes it look pretty good. Oklahoma is as hit or miss with it as they are with FHWA Series–mostly miss.

[Ian]

Good clearview usage:


Okay clearview usage:


Horrible clearview usage:

[Scott5114]

My point is proven. The surefire way to make Clearview ugly is to use a too-large font size.

[Kacie Jane]

Normally I'd counter that comment with something about Highway Gothic looking awful when the font size is too large too, but you have a point. There appears to be something about Clearview that makes it easier to layout a sign poorly.

[1995hoo]

My point is proven. The surefire way to make Clearview ugly is to use a too-large font size.

Or to make the sign too small. The sign shown above for VA-236 is exactly the same size as the old sign, which was replaced solely (as far as I can determine) for the sake of using Clearview. I think if the signs had been made bigger, the font might not look so disproportionately large. But all the signs at that interchange look awful now, and on the northbound side there's one where they abbreviated "Turnpike" as "Trpk." Not sure what was going on there, although there are some street signs in Annandale that say "Trnpk," so maybe they just can't decide.

Virginia has some decent-looking Clearview signs on the Beltway as it's rebuilt, but I'm not sure who made the signs–VDOT or Fluor-TransUrban (the consortium building HOT lanes).

[myosh_tino]

Horrible clearview usage:

It looks like the original signs using Highway Gothic weren't any better...
http://www.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=38.821471,-77.127864&spn=0.002014,0.003449&z=18&layer=c&cbll=38.821567,-77.127735&panoid=ukLUvb0nzn4AOZ_57Q05mQ&cbp=12,226.82,,1,-7

[Alex]

Horrible clearview usage:

It looks like the original signs using Highway Gothic weren't any better...
http://www.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=38.821471,-77.127864&spn=0.002014,0.003449&z=18&layer=c&cbll=38.821567,-77.127735&panoid=ukLUvb0nzn4AOZ_57Q05mQ&cbp=12,226.82,,1,-7

Carbon copying for you...

[codyg1985]

Horrible clearview usage:

It looks like the original signs using Highway Gothic weren't any better...
http://www.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=38.821471,-77.127864&spn=0.002014,0.003449&z=18&layer=c&cbll=38.821567,-77.127735&panoid=ukLUvb0nzn4AOZ_57Q05mQ&cbp=12,226.82,,1,-7

Carbon copying for you...

Alabama has been doing that on it's Clearview installations. A few signs on I-565 westbound have been replaced here in Huntsville with Clearview, and they are exactly the same as the old signs, even one sign that still omits the diagonal exit arrow right before the gore point.