New font inspired by Highway Gothic

[riiga]

I came upon this very interesting font project: Overpass which claims to be "an open source webfont family inspired by Highway Gothic". Personally I think the font looks very pleasing, especially the bolder variants, but I'm not sure how much of use it is to sign makers or illustrators. Quite cool nevertheless.

[Thing 342]

I really like it. It combines my favorite elements from both Highway Gothic (uniformly-stroked rigidity) and Google's Roboto typeface (thinness and usability). It might make its way into a few web pages I maintain.

[SignGeek101]

I love it. It actually reminds me of Helvetica. Sleek, and with many weights. I could easily use it for a homework assignment for school, but for signs, it's not that interesting.

[jakeroot]

Applied it to my most recent re-design. Something in me wants a weight between regular and bold. Semibold?

edit: My favorite part might be the numerals. I really like 'em.

edit 2: added FHWA-comparison (second image):

[Brandon]

^^ Makes me think of a cross between Clearview and FHWA with the better features of both.

[dcbjms]

Overpass is one of the FHWA Series lookalikes I have on my computer; others include Roadway (for Series A and B, apparently based on NYC street signage), Outer Loop NF (which has a few resemblances to Clearview in some areas), and among my favourites, Blue Highway and Expressway (the former is more or less free; the latter you have to pay per font style but the prices are quite low).  IIRC Overpass was designed specifically for one of the variants of Linux as a default font.  What would be interesting to see is if someone designed a FHWA Series-inspired public-domain free font for some of the other writing systems out there (in other words - how does Nunavut and Quebec use syllabics onto their road signs for representing Cree and Inuktitut?) that is not Interstate so that we'd get something more or less complete on that front.

[Duke87]

^^ Makes me think of a cross between Clearview and FHWA with the better features of both.

Yeah, it's basically Highway Gothic with a narrower stroke width and therefore more counter space.

Dunno how well it would work on real world highway signs but it's probably more friendly to being used for print or web design due to its lighter weight.

[jakeroot]

^^ Makes me think of a cross between Clearview and FHWA with the better features of both.

Yeah, it's basically Highway Gothic with a narrower stroke width and therefore more counter space.

Dunno how well it would work on real world highway signs but it's probably more friendly to being used for print or web design due to its lighter weight.

There is a heavier weight. I used "regular" for the destination typeface, but they also have "bold":

[vdeane]

The text looks a little large to me.  Gives me an unfortunate reminder of the sign below.  The numbers are sexy though.

[jakeroot]

The text looks a little large to me...The numbers are sexy though.

I can assure you, it's just an optical illusion. I had a lot of problems with scaling before, but I've long since fixed the problems. The APL signs above are 110" tall.

I too like the numbers. They look smoother. More refined.

[dcbjms]

Dunno how well it would work on real world highway signs but it's probably more friendly to being used for print or web design due to its lighter weight.

If it was translated to real-world highway signs, the basics would be no different from, say, Transport or DIN 1451.  Namely, the heavier weight (Bold) would be used for light backgrounds (white, for example) while the lighter weight (Regular) would be used for darker backgrounds (i.e. green, blue).  In the latter case, however, what Overpass needs is a semi-bold version to complement it - and in that I agree with jakeroot - even if one decided to imitate the Roadgeek 2005 fonts and pair Clearview text with Overpass numerals (which would work only for 5-W and 5-B).  For Overpass Light and Extra Light, they work well only in terms of typography and not as an actual sign.

[briantroutman]

Someone should take the time to do a side-by-side comparison with Blue Highway. I unfortunately don't have the time at the moment.

[dcbjms]

Someone should take the time to do a side-by-side comparison with Blue Highway. I unfortunately don't have the time at the moment.

As I have both fonts on my computer (not right now - I'm using a library computer ATM), I can make that comparison work.

[dcbjms]

So, here's that comparison you wanted, briantroutman.  First two rows are the 26-letter alphabet; next two rows contain much of the Latin-1 set plus four letters necessary for Turkish (as Turkey uses the FHWA Series/Highway Gothic, and the Turkish language makes a phonemic difference between <I, ı>, which is used for a schwa-like sound, and <İ, i>, which is used for a sound similar to English "ee"), the fifth row shows the numbers, and towards the end is a comparison of the different fonts, using the text in the Turkish "Welcome to Europe" (TR: "Avrupa kıtasına hoş geldiniz") sign for all-caps and the Turkish translation of "Cogito ergo sum" (TR: "DüşÃ¼nüyorum, öyleyse varım" - which actually translated, from Turkish into English, into something like "I think, therefore I exist") for mixed-case as the test sentences for comparison.  As my control, I used the Expressway font, which is similar to Blue Highway (in fact, the original creator of Blue Highway intended for Expressway to be the successor to Blue Highway).  To see it at full size (and thus dissect it at your pleasure), you're going to have to click the link below the picture, because it is a large file - visually speaking.  Regardless, it provides an interesting comparison of those three fonts - if someone wants to add onto it Series E (M) or even Enhanced E (M), that would be interesting to see.


Link: http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l171/DanCBJMS_2006/Comparison%20between%20Overpass%20and%20Blue%20Highway_1.png

[1995hoo]

I like that. I find that as the years go by, Gothic is harder to read from a distance because of the thicker stroke width compared to Clearview. My eyes are nowhere near as good as they were 20 years ago. Of course I haven't seen Overpass used at a distance, but it looks good to me in the mockups shown here.

[Scott5114]

I like that. I find that as the years go by, Gothic is harder to read from a distance because of the thicker stroke width compared to Clearview. My eyes are nowhere near as good as they were 20 years ago. Of course I haven't seen Overpass used at a distance, but it looks good to me in the mockups shown here.

How do you feel about Enhanced E-Modified? (Series E with E-Modified spacing)?

[1995hoo]

I like that. I find that as the years go by, Gothic is harder to read from a distance because of the thicker stroke width compared to Clearview. My eyes are nowhere near as good as they were 20 years ago. Of course I haven't seen Overpass used at a distance, but it looks good to me in the mockups shown here.

How do you feel about Enhanced E-Modified? (Series E with E-Modified spacing)?

Can you give me a sample?

[Scott5114]

I like that. I find that as the years go by, Gothic is harder to read from a distance because of the thicker stroke width compared to Clearview. My eyes are nowhere near as good as they were 20 years ago. Of course I haven't seen Overpass used at a distance, but it looks good to me in the mockups shown here.

How do you feel about Enhanced E-Modified? (Series E with E-Modified spacing)?

Can you give me a sample?

[1995hoo]

Thanks. I don't have a sense for the different "series," so if I saw them on the road I couldn't say which one I was seeing. From your picture there, the lower one looks like it'd be the easier of the two to read on the road.

[brycecordry]

I have always used Roadgeek 2005 for my highway fonts. I do a lot of work for my high school, and the bell schedules seen in the link below have those fonts in the header. I used to use Clearview, so some of the older schedules have that font, but my newer files have Highway Gothic.

LINK http://www.cpsk12.org/domain/4568

[briantroutman]

My understanding is that Series E (modified) was created specifically to accommodate the round reflectors of button copy. So once states dropped button copy in favor of full-face reflective sheeting, wouldn't the natural next step have been to simply revert to the narrower stroke width of standard Series E anyway?

[PHLBOS]

My understanding is that Series E (modified) was created specifically to accommodate the round reflectors of button copy. So once states dropped button copy in favor of full-face reflective sheeting, wouldn't the natural next step have been to simply revert to the narrower stroke width of standard Series E anyway?

^^This is what should've been done to make texts more readable.  Such would've saved a lot ot time, effort & money.

I like that. I find that as the years go by, Gothic is harder to read from a distance because of the thicker stroke width compared to Clearview. My eyes are nowhere near as good as they were 20 years ago. Of course I haven't seen Overpass used at a distance, but it looks good to me in the mockups shown here.

How do you feel about Enhanced E-Modified? (Series E with E-Modified spacing)?

Can you give me a sample?

The lower line is much more crisp & readable.  Is that Series E?  Whatever it is; this should be the standard for control city/destination listings on BGS'.

With regards to the listed new font...  the expressway & overpass fonts are fine alternatives to Series E & E(M) but I still prefer FWHA Series C & D fonts for the narrower texts & especially for the numerals.  IMHO, Series D numerals are very readable.

[Scott5114]

My understanding is that Series E (modified) was created specifically to accommodate the round reflectors of button copy. So once states dropped button copy in favor of full-face reflective sheeting, wouldn't the natural next step have been to simply revert to the narrower stroke width of standard Series E anyway?

^^This is what should've been done to make texts more readable.  Such would've saved a lot ot time, effort & money.

I like that. I find that as the years go by, Gothic is harder to read from a distance because of the thicker stroke width compared to Clearview. My eyes are nowhere near as good as they were 20 years ago. Of course I haven't seen Overpass used at a distance, but it looks good to me in the mockups shown here.

How do you feel about Enhanced E-Modified? (Series E with E-Modified spacing)?

Can you give me a sample?

The lower line is much more crisp & readable.  Is that Series E?  Whatever it is; this should be the standard for control city/destination listings on BGS'.

Yes. Top line is Series EM, bottom line is Enhanced E Modified (Series E with EM spacing).

[jakeroot]

Not to toot my own horn here, but nearly all of my redesigns over the last year have used Series EE(M):