On March 19, 2021, LA CAR published “ What the Font? Typeface and Font Politics on America’s Roads. Photo credit: Donald MeekerĬlearview font example. Then, because this is a massive bureaucracy we’re dealing with, last year the FHWA reinstated the interim approval granted 14 years earlier.” In 2016, the approval was rescinded on the basis that earlier studies as to Clearview’s clarity weren’t so clear. Replacing all the traffic signs in the nation would be stratospherically expensive, of course, so Clearview was introduced on an optional basis, used mostly when old signs needed to be replaced anyway. Road Sign Fonts: The Mother Tongue of Our Vehicular Lives. On September 7, 2019, Car and Driver published an article called “ Highway Gothic vs Clearview: Battle of the U.S. The government could have spent a little more time and done a little more research to find a more suitable font for our nation’s highways. But why switch to Highway Gothic? It’s one of hundreds of free fonts that could have been chosen. You have to purchase a license to use Clearview. I think, as does the author of this 2016 New York Times Op-Ed, that it comes down to money. Many wonder why the Federal Highway Administration is going back to using Highway Gothic. It’s why your basic vision test (developed by ophthalmologist Herman Snellen in 1862) looks like this:Įxperts have known for scores of years that people with poor vision can have trouble seeing/interchanging letters. Depending on what fonts are being used, a lowercase “g,” “p,” or “q” can easily get mixed up-as can the lowercase “a,” “c,” “o,” and “e.” For uppercase letters, you have to think about “E,” “F,” and “P” or “D,” “C,” and “O.” These are all letters that tend to get interchanged with one another when your eyesight is not the best. Just the right/wrong curve or a bold or italic typeface can make a font difficult to read. And font sizes and styles really do matter.Īs we age and our eyesight changes, our eyes tend to see fonts differently. More people need to understand that there is a big difference between a serif and a sans serif font. The main difference between Clearview and Highway Gothic is that the former is a serif font (the letters have little feet and handles at the ends of the letter lines) and the latter is a sans serif font (the letter lines truncate without little feet and handles). It’s the difference between being able to clearly read highway/street signs from a distance, especially at night, and not being able to. What’s the big deal, right? Well, as someone who looks at fonts all day long and has created everything from postcards to billboard signs, this is a REALLY big deal. But for the past few years, FHWA has debated reverting back to Highway Gothic. Since 2004, the Federal Highway Administration has been updating highway signs using the Clearview font instead of the long-used Highway Gothic font. What’s in a name? Well, if your font name is Clearview, I’d say it’s pretty obvious.Īpparently, the federal government has decided otherwise. By Johanna Daproza, Director of Creative Services at TalentMEDIA Services
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