The Clearview thread

[hbelkins]

With the FHWA's recent review and the new Congress coming in, I don't see the interim approval lasting much longer.  ADOT probably made the right decision on not to use it again when the interim approval was reinstated.

Besides Arizona and (seemingly at least) PennDOT and the PTC, which other states/agencies that used Clearview previously have opted out even after it was reinstated?

I suspect West Virginia. A sign replacement project on I-79 used the old font.

With the FHWA's recent review and the new Congress coming in, I don't see the interim approval lasting much longer.  ADOT probably made the right decision on not to use it again when the interim approval was reinstated.

Why do you think the new Congress will care, or won't care?

[Pink Jazz]

With the FHWA's recent review and the new Congress coming in, I don't see the interim approval lasting much longer.  ADOT probably made the right decision on not to use it again when the interim approval was reinstated.

Besides Arizona and (seemingly at least) PennDOT and the PTC, which other states/agencies that used Clearview previously have opted out even after it was reinstated?

I know here at the local level in Arizona, Chandler apparently opted back in and Phoenix apparently never stopped using it, while Mesa, Gilbert, and Queen Creek have opted out.

Why do you think the new Congress will care, or won't care?

The push to reinstate Clearview was led by Sam Johnson, who will be retiring from his seat.  With Sam Johnson retiring and Democrats in control of the House, I don't expect there will be any major push for the FHWA to adopt Clearview.

[Scott5114]

With the FHWA's recent review and the new Congress coming in, I don't see the interim approval lasting much longer.  ADOT probably made the right decision on not to use it again when the interim approval was reinstated.

Besides Arizona and (seemingly at least) PennDOT and the PTC, which other states/agencies that used Clearview previously have opted out even after it was reinstated?

Oklahoma used Clearview but did not readopt it with the new interim approval; new conventional-road FHWA Series signs were installed last week on US-62 in Newcastle.

[hbelkins]

Why do you think the new Congress will care, or won't care?

The push to reinstate Clearview was led by Sam Johnson, who will be retiring from his seat.  With Sam Johnson retiring and Democrats in control of the House, I don't expect there will be any major push for the FHWA to adopt Clearview.

But who's to stay that Johnson's successor won't also be interested in pushing TTI's agenda? Or that the Democrats will be eager to revoke Clearview? Don't they have more pressing topics, like Trump's tax returns? 

[paulthemapguy]

But who's to stay that Johnson's successor won't also be interested in pushing TTI's agenda? Or that the Democrats will be eager to revoke Clearview? Don't they have more pressing topics, like Trump's tax returns? 

yes

[vdeane]

The Democrats won't need to revoke Clearview.  The law requiring FHWA to allow it wasn't permanent - in fact, it's already expired.  FHWA probably figured that revoking the IA at this point would only spur Johnson to push for a more permanent law.

[lordsutch]

If TxDOT continues to want to use Clearview (or TTI wants it), they'll certainly be able to get someone else to take up the mantle from Johnson; notably, his proposed legislation to overrule the FHWA rescission before it was rolled into the appropriations bill was co-sponsored by Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Democrat from Dallas (corrected; I had the wrong representative in the original post).

[Roadsguy]

Bad news (for most of us at least): I just spoke with the PennDOT District 8 senior project manager about signage on the I-83 East Shore Section 1 project and he confirmed that PennDOT has returned to Clearview, this project included. I have no idea about the Turnpike Commission.

[hbelkins]

Bad news (for most of us at least): I just spoke with the PennDOT District 8 senior project manager about signage on the I-83 East Shore Section 1 project and he confirmed that PennDOT has returned to Clearview, this project included. I have no idea about the Turnpike Commission.

If PennDOT, or their contractors/consultants, have invested in the font, it makes good economic sense to continue to use it.

[Android]

Ah.  So.   DimView Continues.   Ka-Ching!!!

[kalvado]

Bad news (for most of us at least): I just spoke with the PennDOT District 8 senior project manager about signage on the I-83 East Shore Section 1 project and he confirmed that PennDOT has returned to Clearview, this project included. I have no idea about the Turnpike Commission.

If PennDOT, or their contractors/consultants, have invested in the font, it makes good economic sense to continue to use it.

Actually it makes sense if - and only if - they have to invest in the replacement. E.g. buy new software to use instead of purchased one.
My understanding is that there is no additional cost in returning to FHWA fonts.

[hbelkins]

Bad news (for most of us at least): I just spoke with the PennDOT District 8 senior project manager about signage on the I-83 East Shore Section 1 project and he confirmed that PennDOT has returned to Clearview, this project included. I have no idea about the Turnpike Commission.

If PennDOT, or their contractors/consultants, have invested in the font, it makes good economic sense to continue to use it.

Actually it makes sense if - and only if - they have to invest in the replacement. E.g. buy new software to use instead of purchased one.
My understanding is that there is no additional cost in returning to FHWA fonts.

No, but they have already paid for the Clearview font (vs. the FWHA font being free) so they might as well get a return on their investment. It's like me being forced to use SharePoint for web development -- they paid a pretty penny for it so they're going to get as much use out of it as possible, even it it's not as good as other options.

Plus, Pennsylvania was one of the leading early advocates of Clearview, so they have a vested interest in using it.

[kalvado]

Bad news (for most of us at least): I just spoke with the PennDOT District 8 senior project manager about signage on the I-83 East Shore Section 1 project and he confirmed that PennDOT has returned to Clearview, this project included. I have no idea about the Turnpike Commission.

If PennDOT, or their contractors/consultants, have invested in the font, it makes good economic sense to continue to use it.

Actually it makes sense if - and only if - they have to invest in the replacement. E.g. buy new software to use instead of purchased one.
My understanding is that there is no additional cost in returning to FHWA fonts.

No, but they have already paid for the Clearview font (vs. the FWHA font being free) so they might as well get a return on their investment. It's like me being forced to use SharePoint for web development -- they paid a pretty penny for it so they're going to get as much use out of it as possible, even it it's not as good as other options.

Plus, Pennsylvania was one of the leading early advocates of Clearview, so they have a vested interest in using it.

Financially, once cost is sunk - further decisions should not take that into account. Psychologically it makes sense; financially getting subprime result only because "we paid for that" when there is no additional costs involved is plain stupid.
Now if someone in PA DOT thinks ClearView is actually better - that is a completely different story.

[jakeroot]

My understanding is that there is no additional cost in returning to FHWA fonts.

No, but they have already paid for the Clearview font (vs. the FWHA font being free) so they might as well get a return on their investment.

Haven't the PennDOT contractors been using Clearview for 10+ years? At this point, I'm sure we can conclude that those contractors got their investment back. Although that is a rather strange thing to say, as I'm not sure how to measure investment return in this matter.

[billpa]

Many people around here hate Clearview... That's fine, we're all entitled to have our opinions.
But they should also realize there are many who think it's superior to the traditional highway font. It's the reason it exists in the first place.
I think at some point, with several large states using it, including Texas, it might be time to just accept it's existence. 
With Clearview's "second life" and the apparent birth of a new signs with it popping up, I sort of hope it's allowed to coexist with Gothic across the land.
Some provinces in Canada are using Clearview while others are not; I don't think it's a problem there and I don't think it'll be a problem in the US either.

Pixel 2

[Bobby5280]

There's always a chance the FHWA Series Gothic type family and Clearview type family could be further updated to bring them up to modern type standards.

While there may be plenty of fans of Series Gothic the fact remains the type family is still very primitive in terms of its features and character sets. If it wasn't already long in use as a typeface for traffic sign use the type family would not be good enough to sell commercially. There are plenty of open source type families that are far better drawn and have far more fleshed-out character sets.

Clearview Highway has a more complete set of characters, at least in terms of the basics. As a commercial typeface it is arguably pretty over-priced. It is just for a niche market though. The companion Clearview Text type family has more weights, a much larger OTF-enhanced character set (featuring things like native small capitals, old style figures, full fraction sets, etc) yet a price per font that is lower than Clearview Highway.

[DaBigE]

Many people around here hate Clearview... That's fine, we're all entitled to have our opinions.
But they should also realize there are many who think it's superior to the traditional highway font. It's the reason it exists in the first place.
I think at some point, with several large states using it, including Texas, it might be time to just accept it's existence. 
With Clearview's "second life" and the apparent birth of a new signs with it popping up, I sort of hope it's allowed to coexist with Gothic across the land.
Some provinces in Canada are using Clearview while others are not; I don't think it's a problem there and I don't think it'll be a problem in the US either.

Pixel 2

And that's your opinion. I'm fine if a font replaces Highway Gothic, but only after proper studies are completed -- ones that compare the fonts on level playing fields -- and the new font is found to create a substantial improvement. Accepting something just because a few others are using it is not a good enough justification for the switch/expenditure in my book. Ideally, I'd also love to see this done by someone without the influence of potential profiting on said fonts' sales.

If you haven't read it already, read this report:

FHWA's recently submitted report to Congress on highway sign fonts has been made publicly available: "Highway Sign Fonts" [3.3MB]

[vdeane]

Many people around here hate Clearview... That's fine, we're all entitled to have our opinions.
But they should also realize there are many who think it's superior to the traditional highway font. It's the reason it exists in the first place.
I think at some point, with several large states using it, including Texas, it might be time to just accept it's existence. 
With Clearview's "second life" and the apparent birth of a new signs with it popping up, I sort of hope it's allowed to coexist with Gothic across the land.
Some provinces in Canada are using Clearview while others are not; I don't think it's a problem there and I don't think it'll be a problem in the US either.

Pixel 2

Except it's been shown that Clearview isn't superior, at least not in an apples-to-apples comparison.  The original study compared brand-new, fully reflective Clearview signs to diapilated FHWA signs that should have been replaced decades ago.  Of course it looked better in those conditions.  It wasn't a fair test.

Not to mention that it looks absolutely hideous in many jurisdictions, PA among them.

[Roadsguy]

Not to mention that it looks absolutely hideous in many jurisdictions, PA among them.

Ironically, I actually think that by now most PennDOT districts have mostly figured out how to do Clearview "well," though many districts (particularly the western ones) are still obsessed with large first letters.

It's certainly far easier to mess up than Highway Gothic, which is a red flag in and of itself.

[Bobby5280]

Far easier to mess up than Highway Gothic? News flash: any typeface can look absolutely hideous if the person working with type does stupid things with it when setting it into a sign design or other graphics composition. Some of the comments maligning Clearview in defense of Series Gothic absurdly seem to imply lettering in Clearview is always fatally prone to graphical design errors while Series Gothic is somehow immune from the same issues for magical reasons that are never explained. The whole thing deserves a giant amount of "what-about-ism" leveled on multiple fronts in traffic sign design and commercial sign design in general.

My own personal background: I have worked in the commercial sign industry over 20 years and a degree in graphic design and illustration on top of that. I know how to work with type better than most people and am all too familiar with the boundaries of where you can use certain kinds of type versus others. I am good at what I do, but at the same time I am routinely disgusted by the terrible work of so many others working in my industry. Poorly designed signs and poorly maintained signs are the top two motivating factors for communities drafting very restrictive anti-signs ordinances. Lots of people in this forum get disgusted at the sight of Clearview. My own hatred is reserved for Arial. It's a typeface I like about the least out of neutral sans serif type families. But my hatred for Arial is really more about all the idiots working in sign companies who can't resist the urge to squeeze and stretch Arial out of its normal proportions. So I associate Arial with most bad commercial sign design. It's near the top of the font menu, making it the go-to default font for hack designers.

I have seen both Series Gothic and Clearview used both properly and improperly. In all of the examples of improper use that I've seen none of it has ever been the fault of the typeface itself. The real problem is people who either don't know what they're doing or more likely don't care what they're doing when designing a sign. Okahoma's DOT often does shoddy work when fabricating large highway signs. I've seen them goof up both Series Gothic and Clearview in really unexpected ways -like a single word on a sign panel having characters of different sizes. It's like they had a mixed bag box full of die cut vinyl letters waiting to peel and stick on a sign panel one letter at a time. Or they try to cram a sign message with letters that are too big into a sign panel that is too small. Because they're being cheap. TX DOT usually does a decent job with its big green signs, but they're often guilty of cramming lettering into panels not really wide enough for the legend. White space is pretty important in graphic design. But someone trims the size of the sign panel to save money.

It's obvious many road geeks have a sentimental attachment to Series Gothic. I personally wouldn't use it for anything else other than a traffic sign layout. To me it's a fairly crude typeface compared to so many other sans serif type families. If I wanted the "flavor" of Highway Gothic incorporated into a commercial sign I would much rather use Interstate from Font Bureau. But even Interstate has kind of fallen out of fashion due to over-use. I'm not sure if it will even gain a resurgence of sorts since Font Bureau made it available to sync via Adobe Fonts for no extra charge.

[Brandon]

It's certainly far easier to mess up than Highway Gothic, which is a red flag in and of itself.

CalTrans: Hold my beer!

[Bobby5280]

Caltrans could make any typeface look ugly considering how they handle highway sign design and maintenance. There's lots of huge green signs throughout their freeway system. But so many are decaying badly or have other problems, like hideous looking patch jobs. I generally dislike their conventions of sign design. I hate the unique way they handle exit tabs. Even a bunch of their overhead sign structures look ugly. My least favorite is that solid wall treatment behind the green panels. That stuff looks like a giant privacy fence hanging over the road.

[vdeane]

Far easier to mess up than Highway Gothic? News flash: any typeface can look absolutely hideous if the person working with type does stupid things with it when setting it into a sign design or other graphics composition. Some of the comments maligning Clearview in defense of Series Gothic absurdly seem to imply lettering in Clearview is always fatally prone to graphical design errors while Series Gothic is somehow immune from the same issues for magical reasons that are never explained. The whole thing deserves a giant amount of "what-about-ism" leveled on multiple fronts in traffic sign design and commercial sign design in general.

My own personal background: I have worked in the commercial sign industry over 20 years and a degree in graphic design and illustration on top of that. I know how to work with type better than most people and am all too familiar with the boundaries of where you can use certain kinds of type versus others. I am good at what I do, but at the same time I am routinely disgusted by the terrible work of so many others working in my industry. Poorly designed signs and poorly maintained signs are the top two motivating factors for communities drafting very restrictive anti-signs ordinances. Lots of people in this forum get disgusted at the sight of Clearview. My own hatred is reserved for Arial. It's a typeface I like about the least out of neutral sans serif type families. But my hatred for Arial is really more about all the idiots working in sign companies who can't resist the urge to squeeze and stretch Arial out of its normal proportions. So I associate Arial with most bad commercial sign design. It's near the top of the font menu, making it the go-to default font for hack designers.

I have seen both Series Gothic and Clearview used both properly and improperly. In all of the examples of improper use that I've seen none of it has ever been the fault of the typeface itself. The real problem is people who either don't know what they're doing or more likely don't care what they're doing when designing a sign. Okahoma's DOT often does shoddy work when fabricating large highway signs. I've seen them goof up both Series Gothic and Clearview in really unexpected ways -like a single word on a sign panel having characters of different sizes. It's like they had a mixed bag box full of die cut vinyl letters waiting to peel and stick on a sign panel one letter at a time. Or they try to cram a sign message with letters that are too big into a sign panel that is too small. Because they're being cheap. TX DOT usually does a decent job with its big green signs, but they're often guilty of cramming lettering into panels not really wide enough for the legend. White space is pretty important in graphic design. But someone trims the size of the sign panel to save money.

It's obvious many road geeks have a sentimental attachment to Series Gothic. I personally wouldn't use it for anything else other than a traffic sign layout. To me it's a fairly crude typeface compared to so many other sans serif type families. If I wanted the "flavor" of Highway Gothic incorporated into a commercial sign I would much rather use Interstate from Font Bureau. But even Interstate has kind of fallen out of fashion due to over-use. I'm not sure if it will even gain a resurgence of sorts since Font Bureau made it available to sync via Adobe Fonts for no extra charge.

Honestly, the ugly FHWA signs I've seen tend to be because of errors on the individual signs.  The ugly Clearview signs I've seen seem to be consistent across a jurisdiction - for example, the Thruway Clearview signs all look ugly, and almost all of them (barring an early test case or two on an older style) look ugly in the exact same way (and their new FHWA signs look good even though the font is the only thing that's really changed).  In particular, text on Clearview signs seems to look simultaneously look overly large and thin at the same time, especially the numbers.

[Bobby5280]

When I do a critical take-down on a sign design I get into specifics rather than just saying it looks ugly. The term "ugly" is really only a subjective, non-specific judgment. If you're saying a bunch of signs set in Clearview are all ugly in the same way that only sounds like you just don't like the aesthetic style of Clearview. There's nothing wrong with that. But it says nothing about how the signs bearing that typeface were actually designed and fabricated.

The "x-height" of Clearview lowercase letters are 81.6% the "M-height" of its capital letters, more than 6% larger than Series Gothic lowercase letters. That complies with a rule regarding highway sign fonts last decade, which requires lowercase letters to be at least 75% the height of the corresponding capitals in that typeface. That rule has been badly mis-interpreted in many cases, resulting in many road-side travesties in sign design. Series Gothic actually comes up a tad short of that 75% rule. Depending on the version you use the X-height will be 72%-73% of the cap letter M-height. Only taller lowercase glyphs like "o" get it past the 75% barrier. Funny thing: the x-height of Font Bureau's Interstate is exactly 75%. Clearview's "color" is not as "black" as Series Gothic. The loops and other features on glyphs are larger and more open. That can improve legibility as well as the rhythm of text spacing. It also does reduce over-glow of reflective letters. But one consequence is lettering set in Clearview tends to require longer sign panels.

Clearview has a more contemporary design to it. It is not as "neutral" looking as a geometric sans face such as HTF Gotham, or even as neutral as Series Gothic. That increased amount of style does not appeal to everyone. As I've said before (repeatedly) I think Series Gothic is pretty crude and even dated looking. It is not well drawn compared to modern type design standards and it has a grossly insufficient character set. Interstate is far better drawn (designed by one of the world's best living type designers) and has a much larger "super family" of faces. But its built-in spacing is not appropriate for traffic sign use. It has 36 weights, but that's divided up between only 3 widths.

Perhaps the next time federal agencies look at evaluating typefaces for traffic sign use they ought to be more objective with evaluating what is available both in the open source field of type as well as commercial alternatives. I am certain there are typefaces with feature sets superior to those in both Series Gothic and Clearview that could give both a run for their money in terms of objective legibility tests. Those agencies might also want to take a look at new technologies like the OpenType Variable format. The Acumin Variable Concept typeface bundled in with Adobe Illustrator CC is pretty cool.

[DaBigE]

Far easier to mess up than Highway Gothic? News flash: any typeface can look absolutely hideous if the person working with type does stupid things with it when setting it into a sign design or other graphics composition. Some of the comments maligning Clearview in defense of Series Gothic absurdly seem to imply lettering in Clearview is always fatally prone to graphical design errors while Series Gothic is somehow immune from the same issues for magical reasons that are never explained. The whole thing deserves a giant amount of "what-about-ism" leveled on multiple fronts in traffic sign design and commercial sign design in general.

My own personal background: I have worked in the commercial sign industry over 20 years and a degree in graphic design and illustration on top of that. I know how to work with type better than most people and am all too familiar with the boundaries of where you can use certain kinds of type versus others. I am good at what I do, but at the same time I am routinely disgusted by the terrible work of so many others working in my industry. Poorly designed signs and poorly maintained signs are the top two motivating factors for communities drafting very restrictive anti-signs ordinances. Lots of people in this forum get disgusted at the sight of Clearview. My own hatred is reserved for Arial. It's a typeface I like about the least out of neutral sans serif type families. But my hatred for Arial is really more about all the idiots working in sign companies who can't resist the urge to squeeze and stretch Arial out of its normal proportions. So I associate Arial with most bad commercial sign design. It's near the top of the font menu, making it the go-to default font for hack designers.

I have seen both Series Gothic and Clearview used both properly and improperly. In all of the examples of improper use that I've seen none of it has ever been the fault of the typeface itself. The real problem is people who either don't know what they're doing or more likely don't care what they're doing when designing a sign. Okahoma's DOT often does shoddy work when fabricating large highway signs. I've seen them goof up both Series Gothic and Clearview in really unexpected ways -like a single word on a sign panel having characters of different sizes. It's like they had a mixed bag box full of die cut vinyl letters waiting to peel and stick on a sign panel one letter at a time. Or they try to cram a sign message with letters that are too big into a sign panel that is too small. Because they're being cheap. TX DOT usually does a decent job with its big green signs, but they're often guilty of cramming lettering into panels not really wide enough for the legend. White space is pretty important in graphic design. But someone trims the size of the sign panel to save money.

It's obvious many road geeks have a sentimental attachment to Series Gothic. I personally wouldn't use it for anything else other than a traffic sign layout. To me it's a fairly crude typeface compared to so many other sans serif type families. If I wanted the "flavor" of Highway Gothic incorporated into a commercial sign I would much rather use Interstate from Font Bureau. But even Interstate has kind of fallen out of fashion due to over-use. I'm not sure if it will even gain a resurgence of sorts since Font Bureau made it available to sync via Adobe Fonts for no extra charge.

Honestly, the ugly FHWA signs I've seen tend to be because of errors on the individual signs.

I submit Exhibit A: https://goo.gl/maps/oKX3Vw6KxSt. Embarrassed by my own alma mater.