The Clearview thread

[cl94]

I wonder if most Clearview states will go back to Series E Modified for most signage, or will they use another FHWA variant?  ADOT has decided to use plain Series E instead of Series E Modified on freeways, Series D on non-freeways, and Series C on street blades.  I also wonder if the FHWA will approve Enhanced E Modified.

Assuming the new NYSTA signs are indeed the new standard, they went back to E(m). Of course, we won't necessarily know until the next batch of replacements unrelated to a major project are installed.

[Bobby5280]

In the press release the FHWA says there will be no further development on alternative alphabets for highway signs. That leaves us stuck with Series Gothic, which is just fine and dandy for road geeks who love the look of that typeface. But functionally Series Gothic has a woefully minimal, primitive and inadequate character set when compared to modern commercial quality OpenType typefaces.

Since the FHWA insisted on going back to Series Gothic they really ought to take the existing type design, clean it up a bit (because some of the characters are really clunky) and expand it into a range that is more acceptable for modern type use. IIRC some of the weights in Series Gothic didn't even have any lower case characters until the Series 2000 release. The current Series Gothic fonts have no foreign language support due to the very limited range of punctuation and next to nothing in terms of diacritic marks.

Clearview had its own inadequacies, but its character set was more developed than Series Gothic. Each Clearview font file had around 340 characters, which really isn't all that much compared to some commercial typefaces that boast 1000, 2000 or even more glyphs for each font file. Versions of Series Gothic I've seen since 2000 vary between 83 or 111 characters. Font Bureau's Interstate has around 245 glyphs in each font, covering a bunch of basic territory Series Gothic fails to cover.

Clearview had extended Latin and Western European diacritics. Although its fractions were flawed, Clearview had more built-in fractions and (unlike Series Gothic) a complete set of numerators and denominators for making any fraction combination.

Neither Clearview or Series Gothic had numeral sets to support both proportional and tabular lining. Neither had native small capitals character sets, despite elements like cardinal direction signs and elements requiring large cap/small cap treatment. Neither had alphabets other than Latin; modern typefaces often add Cyrillic and Greek character sets. Clearview could have been more successful if Terminal Design had fixed a few issues and added some other missing features.

So while lots of road geeks are seeing this bit of news as a victory, I see this as a functional step backward. Series Gothic is a very deficient type family that needs a radical overhaul.

I wonder if most Clearview states will go back to Series E Modified for most signage, or will they use another FHWA variant?  ADOT has decided to use plain Series E instead of Series E Modified on freeways, Series D on non-freeways, and Series C on street blades.  I also wonder if the FHWA will approve Enhanced E Modified.

Who knows for sure? That very situation contradicts one of their main knocks against Clearview, that somehow Clearview was making sign designs inconsistent due to its different widths, weights, etc. That problem was already present with the existing Series Gothic alphabet!

The real problem is people who don't know what they're doing regarding sign design. It does require some typographical knowledge and talent in graphic design. People who can't tell the difference between one font weight or another are unqualified to design signs as far as I'm concerned. They wouldn't last long at all in my sign company. We deal literally with thousands of typefaces, including numerous variants of the same typeface (one vendor's Futura isn't the same as another). I'm not sympathetic to people who can't tell the difference between various weights in Clearview and Series Gothic.

[Pink Jazz]

Since the FHWA insisted on going back to Series Gothic they really ought to take the existing type design, clean it up a bit (because some of the characters are really clunky) and expand it into a range that is more acceptable for modern type use. IIRC some of the weights in Series Gothic didn't even have any lower case characters until the Series 2000 release. The current Series Gothic fonts have no foreign language support due to the very limited range of punctuation and next to nothing in terms of diacritic marks.

I know Puerto Rico has diacritics on some signs due to the use of Spanish; I presume they might have been custom-designed by DTOP.  I have never seen Clearview used at all in Puerto Rico.

[Quillz]

Can I see

I wonder if most Clearview states will go back to Series E Modified for most signage, or will they use another FHWA variant?  ADOT has decided to use plain Series E instead of Series E Modified on freeways, Series D on non-freeways, and Series C on street blades.  I also wonder if the FHWA will approve Enhanced E Modified.

Enhanced E Modified? Can I see a pic of this?

EDIT: Disregard, found an older thread here. Seems it would be Series E with the kerning of E(M).

One thing I like about Caltrans is they appear to have thicker variants of both C and D, akin to E(M). But as far as I know, it's never been adopted nationwide, although some Oklahoma and Iowa signage seem to do something similar.

[getemngo]

This is the darkest timeline.

Seriously though, I'm not surprised at all that the FHWA is halting all development of new typefaces. While I very much like Clearview's appearance, its testing and rollout was, to put it politely, very uneven. After this, "caution" will be the name of the game for many decades.

E(m) is tried and true, and there's nothing overtly wrong with it, so why would a state agency try out another unproven font? It is probably possible to develop something that works even better, but any gains in legibility are unlikely to outweigh the cost of development (or the risk of development going wrong).

(As a former Clearview evangelist, I can't believe I typed that last paragraph!  )

[Bobby5280]

If they have to stick with the existing Series Gothic design the FHWA just needs to expand it. The character set is puny even by freebie font standards. Actually there are some open source typefaces that have huge character sets. Check out a newly released typeface, Tehuti at Font Squirrel. It's not appropriate for traffic sign use, but it has an exhaustive character set. Over 4300 glyphs per font weight.
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/tehuti

Series Gothic doesn't have to be expanded to those extremes. But it does need to satisfy a check list of modern typeface requirements, otherwise it's only going to be good for use in the United States writing out only American sounding terms and not even being properly functional for that.

[corco]

I don't know why the FHWA font for use on roadsigns in the USA needs 4300 glyphs. If we can cover English, French, and Spanish characters (for Puerto Rico and signing destinations in Quebec and Mexico), and whatever punctuation is allowed in the MUTCD, that is sufficient.

If somebody needs to expand the font to cover more than that, I'm not sure why the FHWA needs to fund that, unless it is for use on signs in the United States. We're not going to start using interrobangs on road signs or start dual signing things in Cyrillic at any time in the foreseeable future...

[Zeffy]

I don't know why the FHWA font for use on roadsigns in the USA needs 4300 glyphs. If we can cover English, French, and Spanish characters (for Puerto Rico and signing destinations in Quebec and Mexico), and whatever punctuation is allowed in the MUTCD, that is sufficient.

This. We're talking about road signs here - so 26 characters for each letter, in both upper and lowercase format, 10 digits for numbers 0-9, punctuation marks, a set of accented characters for the main vowels, some extra symbols, and that's it. What else do we need?

[thenetwork]

What really turned me off on Clearview was that some states were so eager to switch out BGSs which were only a few years old with new Clearview signs, while there are other BGSs which are well over 15-20 years old that are still standing.

<Church Lady Mode ON> Well, I wonder what state I could be speaking of...I don't know, could it be, ummmmm.....OHIO??? </Church Lady>

[jakeroot]

I wonder if most Clearview states will go back to Series E Modified for most signage, or will they use another FHWA variant?  ADOT has decided to use plain Series E instead of Series E Modified on freeways, Series D on non-freeways, and Series C on street blades.  I also wonder if the FHWA will approve Enhanced E Modified.

This is also something I'm interested in knowing. I'm fairly certain that Series E(M) was introduced for button copy installations, but its use has continued anyways.

I seem to remember recent studies showing Series EE(M) to be superior to Clearview and E(M). But I couldn't provide a link.

So while lots of road geeks are seeing this bit of news as a victory, I see this as a functional step backward. Series Gothic is a very deficient type family that needs a radical overhaul.

I very much agree, Bobby. Certainly there was a reason that Clearview was developed in the first place (out of curiosity or otherwise, there wouldn't have been an interest in Clearview if Highway Gothic were perfect).

[cl94]

What really turned me off on Clearview was that some states were so eager to switch out BGSs which were only a few years old with new Clearview signs, while there are other BGSs which are well over 15-20 years old that are still standing.

<Church Lady Mode ON> Well, I wonder what state I could be speaking of...I don't know, could it be, ummmmm.....OHIO??? </Church Lady>

Yeah. That's what I was thinking of. They still have a boatload of button copy, but noooooooooo. Some of the replaced signs were post-button copy. There were a bunch of those on the NE corner of I-270 and downtown, such as this sign. ODOT didn't finish dumping button copy until 2003ish.

[TravelingBethelite]

I found Clearview in Connecticut...send help.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.7102675,-72.759674,3a,37.5y,318.84h,95.3t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sE8D6ykU3w5XBHNfrp1ApvA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

[Bobby5280]

I don't know why the FHWA font for use on roadsigns in the USA needs 4300 glyphs. If we can cover English, French, and Spanish characters (for Puerto Rico and signing destinations in Quebec and Mexico), and whatever punctuation is allowed in the MUTCD, that is sufficient.

I didn't say the Series Gothic typefaces needed to be expanded that far. But the example of Tehuti shows just how far some typefaces are being developed. And that's just for typefaces geared for predominantly Latin-alphabet use. It's common for Asian typefaces to go well beyond 8,000 glyphs. OpenType can support up to 64,000 glyphs in one font file.

If somebody needs to expand the font to cover more than that, I'm not sure why the FHWA needs to fund that, unless it is for use on signs in the United States. We're not going to start using interrobangs on road signs or start dual signing things in Cyrillic at any time in the foreseeable future...

No, but extended Latin and Western European character sets should be mandatory. The fastest growing segment of population in the United States is the Latino/Hispanic segment. A bunch of people in Canada speak French. Some points of interest and geographic names within the US have Latin or European names that require the use of accented characters in order to be spelled out correctly. At least Clearview managed to cover that. Series Gothic won't let you do that unless you make some home-made, non-standard diacritics yourself.

It would be nice to have more than 3 built-in fractions, or better yet a full set of superior/inferior figures for auto-generating any fraction possible. It would be nice to have numeral sets with spacing tables that support tabular and proportional spacing. It would be nice to have a native small capitals character set, complete with all the accents available to upper and lowercase characters. An acceptably well featured OpenType typeface that covers those bases will have between 500 and 700 glyphs.

If the FHWA isn't interested in getting road sign design standards out of 1960's quality and mindset the FHWA should just get out of the font design business, study the best commercially available alternatives and settle on that for road sign standards.

[vdeane]

We're not going to start using interrobangs on road signs or start dual signing things in Cyrillic at any time in the foreseeable future...

What if we build the tunnel under the Bering Strait?

I found Clearview in Connecticut...send help.

For those who don't want to parse out the street view link from the img tag: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.7102675,-72.759674,3a,37.5y,318.84h,95.3t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sE8D6ykU3w5XBHNfrp1ApvA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

[Pink Jazz]

As far as diacritics go, does Mexico use them on their signs?  FHWA is the official sign font for Mexico as well.  Why just don't borrow the accented characters from the Mexican MUTCD and add them to the American MUTCD to accommodate for Spanish?

[Duke87]

Come to think of it, I've never been able to figure out where those exit 6A signs came from (the exit 39 ones came from the 39-40 reconstruction project and are likely contractor installs), especially since it's all of them, even on a gantry with other signs in a different style.  Makes me wonder if they were a test installation.

The reason it's all of them is because prior to 2011 Ridge Hill Blvd did not exist and the signs merely said Stew Leonard Drive. With the opening of the new street, the signs were all changed out to include it.

[hbelkins]

Michigan was a lot worse than Ohio for replacing perfectly good signs with Clearview signs just because.

[J N Winkler]

As far as diacritics go, does Mexico use them on their signs?

Mexico uses all-uppercase for direction signing and the almost ubiquitous white-background general informatory signs.  Spanish allows diacritics except for the tilde to be omitted when uppercase letters are used, so it is fairly rare to see accented characters on Mexican signs.  However, the tilde is always used, and is typically rendered as a macron with bias-cut ends (as in Spain), not as an elongated S-curve as on American signs that try to be correct with Spanish placenames.

FHWA is the official sign font for Mexico as well.

Actually, it is not.  Mexico has its own typeface family for traffic signing purposes.  The glyphs look similar to the (loosely) corresponding FHWA alphabet series for most letters, but some, such as P and R, are noticeably different, with larger loops.  One of the Mexican alphabet series falls midway between FHWA Series C and Series D in condensation level (typical letter width).

It is not uncommon to see the FHWA alphabet series used on traffic signs in Mexico, but this is generally because the fabricator has cheated and failed to use the actual Mexican typefaces.

Why just don't borrow the accented characters from the Mexican MUTCD and add them to the American MUTCD to accommodate for Spanish?

I'd suggest copying the strategy MTQ used for alphabet extension in pre-Clearview days, which was to borrow the diacritics from Univers.

It is more important that whatever approach is followed be consistent across the country and show adequate recognition of the fact that reading a traffic sign is not the same as reading a book.  There are far too many one-of-a-kind "swoopy" book tildes on US road signs in historically Spanish-speaking areas.

[SignGeek101]

For me, it's going to be interesting to see what happens in other jurisdictions (outside the US) that currently use Clearview. Will they continue to use it, or revert back?

I made a thread about this a while back:

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=13684.msg2012851#msg2012851

[Pink Jazz]

As far as diacritics go, does Mexico use them on their signs?

Mexico uses all-uppercase for direction signing and the almost ubiquitous white-background general informatory signs.  Spanish allows diacritics except for the tilde to be omitted when uppercase letters are used, so it is fairly rare to see accented characters on Mexican signs.  However, the tilde is always used, and is typically rendered as a macron with bias-cut ends (as in Spain), not as an elongated S-curve as on American signs that try to be correct with Spanish placenames.

"Ã'" is actually a distinct letter in Spanish, so I can see why the tilde is always included.

BTW, Puerto Rico uses an "S curve" style tilde.

[Pink Jazz]

For me, it's going to be interesting to see what happens in other jurisdictions (outside the US) that currently use Clearview. Will they continue to use it, or revert back?

I made a thread about this a while back:

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=13684.msg2012851#msg2012851

In Canada, Quebec will probably stick with Clearview since they have actually made it mandatory, but other Canadian provinces may consider a reversion to FHWA.

[jakeroot]

In Canada, Quebec will probably stick with Clearview since they have actually made it mandatory, but other Canadian provinces may consider a reversion to FHWA.

This has already been discussed to death...BC will probably stick with Clearview but other provinces may switch. For reasons that have been discussed here:

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=13684.msg2012851#msg2012851

[cl94]

For me, it's going to be interesting to see what happens in other jurisdictions (outside the US) that currently use Clearview. Will they continue to use it, or revert back?

I made a thread about this a while back:

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=13684.msg2012851#msg2012851

In Canada, Quebec will probably stick with Clearview since they have actually made it mandatory, but other Canadian provinces may consider a reversion to FHWA.

Ontario ended their trial (and replaced many of the signs), so the question in that province is whether or not Toronto will switch back.

This has already been discussed to death...BC will probably stick with Clearview but other provinces may switch. For reasons that have been discussed here:
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=13684.msg2012851#msg2012851

I agree. BC has gone full Clearview and I don't see that changing. The Praries and Maritimes are the big unknowns.

[Bobby5280]

Clearview certainly has the advantage over Series Gothic in Quebec since it has diacritics for upper and lowercase characters.

Mexico uses all-uppercase for direction signing and the almost ubiquitous white-background general informatory signs.  Spanish allows diacritics except for the tilde to be omitted when uppercase letters are used, so it is fairly rare to see accented characters on Mexican signs.  However, the tilde is always used, and is typically rendered as a macron with bias-cut ends (as in Spain), not as an elongated S-curve as on American signs that try to be correct with Spanish placenames.

In Spain their highway signs do use diacritics for more uppercase characters than Ã'. Their typeface looks a lot like Series Gothic, but there are some subtle differences. As far as using a slightly altered macron for Ã' that practice might work okay until you get into a situation where the characters like Ũ and Ū come into play.

[PurdueBill]

Hooray!

I wonder if agencies who bought the license for Clearview, especially recently, might be looking for their money back because they were sold a dud. 

The statements in the FHWA reasoning for yanking Clearview are not a surprise.  It has seemed that a lot of places have had sign layout quality go way downhill at the same time they introduced Clearview, which is probably not a coincidence.  I like how they basically called out the offenders who either would not or could not read the explicit limits on Clearview usage and used it all over the place.  Those offenders probably are what really caused it to fail in the end.  Had Clearview only ever been used as approved, it might have survived.

Kudos to INDOT and MassDOT, agencies of two states I have a relationship with, for never jumping on the bandwagon.