Street Blade Signs Changing (All Uppercase > Mixed Case)?

[mjb2002]

Now, introducing the new City of Aiken sign:

Why switch to mixed-case to comply with the MUTCD if you're just going to break compliance by using the wrong font?

The green-on-white portion of the sign is also not in compliance with the MUTCD either.

If the city of Aiken had taken either the Whiskey/Ola Hitt or Marlboro/Park blade designs and changed them to accommodate larger lettering and mixed case, it would be in compliance.

Actually, where the green-on-white is located is, in fact, legit -- since the suffix, numbering, direction and pictograph are all extras and are not required on road signs.

The only major issue that the sign has is with the typeface.

[roadfro]

^ The suffix, block number, direction and pictograph are indeed optional on street name signs. However, the color scheme of white on green is a standard in the 2009 MUTCD (the standard can be deviated by local option, with white on brown, white on blue, or black on white being the only permissible alternatives).

The MUTCD also has guidance that states the optional pictograph (the horse head, in this case) should be to the left of the street name legend. The other designs I pointed out follow this guidance.

[Ian]

Sorry to bump an old topic, but New Hampshire DOT has gotten to making their green uni-signs mixed case. Here is one I photographed in Wolfeboro:


They look almost exactly the same as the previous ones, just mixed case. They look good IMO.

[mjb2002]

Sorry to bump an old topic, but New Hampshire DOT has gotten to making their green uni-signs mixed case. Here is one I photographed in Wolfeboro:


They look almost exactly the same as the previous ones, just mixed case. They look good IMO.

What in the world is that pic with the 28 inside of it?

[J N Winkler]

The NH state route marker is essentially the silhouette of the Old Man in the Mountain, which now no longer exists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_in_the_Mountain

[mjb2002]

I see why it no longer exists:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/04/us/iconic-rock-face-succumbs-to-age-and-gravity.html?scp=14&sq=old%20man%20of%20the%20mountain&st=cse

[Ian]

As JN pointed out, it was the silhouette of the Old Man of the Mountain. It's a real bummer that it no longer exists, but I'm glad New Hampshire still considers it an icon.

[mjb2002]

What do you all think about mixed-case Frutiger?

[Quillz]

Was Frutiger designed for legibility from a distance, the way the FHWA Series and Clearview were? I don't think it looks bad, but it's not nearly as good as the FHWA Series fonts. It has the same issue as Clearview: humanist fonts tend to have non-uniform letter width and spacing, so the aesthetic quality suffers a little bit.

But on the other hand, mixed-case has been shown to improve legibility, because it's not just the individual letters, but the distinct shape the whole word forms that can help visibility (although in this case it might be through muscle memory.) (In other words, some studies suggested that using all-caps makes all words look basically the same from far away: effectively just rectangles.)

[mjb2002]

I now prefer Frutiger over Clearview. The l's and a's look better on Frutiger than on Clearview.

[Quillz]

I prefer Clearview to Frutiger overall. But neither have particularly great numeral sets. (And I used to be a big Clearview fan.)

[ftballfan]

As JN pointed out, it was the silhouette of the Old Man of the Mountain. It's a real bummer that it no longer exists, but I'm glad New Hampshire still considers it an icon.

And it is more unique than a boring square

[Ian]

As JN pointed out, it was the silhouette of the Old Man of the Mountain. It's a real bummer that it no longer exists, but I'm glad New Hampshire still considers it an icon.

And it is more unique than a boring square

...which New Hampshire used before the 1980's!

[Brandon]

Frutiger and Clearview...it's not the letters that really bother me (beyond the "g"), it's the number sets for the most part.  Personally, I prefer Michigan's custom number set over FHWA for aesthetics.  I'm of the opinion that 4s and 7s should be clipped, 3s and 8s should have upper and lower parts the same radius, and 5s, 6s, 8s, and 9s should have constant radii.

[agentsteel53]

3s and 8s should have upper and lower parts the same radius

this, for one, doesn't look bad at all

[mjb2002]

Mixed-case town limit signs have started popping up all over Bamberg County, S.C. now. Denmark and Bamberg have them in almost all directions now.

[mtantillo]

Significant change (potentially): http://www.mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/knowledge/09mutcdproposedrev/compliance_dates/index.htm

Looks like if this goes through, the retroreflectivity requirements won't apply to street name blades.  That was the only thing that was really forcing agencies to replace blades, the mixed case was only a "when you're replacing them anyway for some other reason, make them mixed case". 

[mjb2002]

Significant change (potentially): http://www.mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/knowledge/09mutcdproposedrev/compliance_dates/index.htm

Looks like if this goes through, the retroreflectivity requirements won't apply to street name blades.  That was the only thing that was really forcing agencies to replace blades, the mixed case was only a "when you're replacing them anyway for some other reason, make them mixed case".  

Yeah, I read about that and downloaded the pdf of the possible change on my Compaq.

If approved, the 1/22/2018 deadline will no longer be in effect. However, the replacement street name signs still MUST be in mixed case if they are replaced for any reason. So really, the only thing that changes is that municipalities, or contractors if they are the ones responsible for street signs, will replace the signs ONLY when necessary.

[mtantillo]

Yes.  Requiring replacement when the old ones are worn out makes much more sense, because you'd replace them anyway and the marginal cost to upgrade to mixed-case font is negligible.  Requiring replacement before they are worn out could have led to the spending of public money on street signs when there may have been other more important uses for that money. 

[brownpelican]

Spotted these new blades in Jackson, Miss. last week:






And these are found around Jackson State University:

[Scott5114]

Ooo, I like the Jackson ones. But not the university ones. Times New Roman can die in a fire.

[mjb2002]

What series are the City of Jackson, Miss. signs?

And Jackson State U's Times New Roman signs look ok for that font. And I didn't know that mixed-case newspaper fonts were allowed on road signs.

[Scott5114]

They're not, and Times New Roman is a particularly bad choice, because the stroke width gets so thin that it's difficult to see. Check out that W, for instance, and now imagine a nice dose of halation around it and you can see how under unfavorable conditions it could be washed out to just look like "\ \ '".

The non-university signs are Series C.

[Anthony_JK]

Baton Rouge uses the same Times New Roman font for their blades in the downtown area. Everywhere else, it is Clearview, I believe.


Anthony

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

Baton Rouge uses the same Times New Roman font for their blades in the downtown area. Everywhere else, it is Clearview, I believe.


Anthony

Baton Rouge changes sign blades (downtown) again?! Isn't that the third time in 10 years?