Next Exit: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Highway Sign Graphics

Left, an old sign with Highway Gothic lettering. Right, a new sign in Clearview

In case you missed it while enjoying your bagels and coffee yesterday, Sunday's New York Times Magazine featured a geeky but fascinating article about the evolution of Interstate highway signage in the United States. 

The piece describes an effort by designers Don Meeker and James Montalbano to improve the legibility of highway directional signs -- the big green signs with white letters that are an iconic part of the American road trip experience. Today, the vast majority of those signs use a font called Highway Gothic that's been the standard ever since President Dwight D. Eisenhower created the Interstate network during the 1950s.  Highway Gothic is sub-optimal, however, because elderly or visually-impaired motorists find it difficult to read during nighttime driving.  Times writer Joshua Yaffa describes basic problem with Highway Gothic:

“The fundamental flaw of Highway Gothic is that the counter shapes are too tiny,” Montalbano told me, referring to the empty interior spaces of a typeface, like the inside of an “o.” When viewed from a distance, and especially at night under the glare of high-beam headlights, the tightly wound lowercase “a” of Highway Gothic becomes a singular dense, glowing orb; the “e,” a confusing blur of shapes and curved lines. Meeker puts it more bluntly: “They look like bullets that you couldn’t put a pin through.”

The solution lies in a new font  designed by Meeker and Montalbano called Clearview. The defining features of individual letters are slightly more pronounced in Clearview, while the counter shapes are bigger. See for yourself. Highway Gothic is on the left; Clearview is on the right:

This overlay makes the difference even more noticeable. The Clearview letters are in white, Highway Gothic is blue:

Clearview generates a 12 percent increase in legibility for overhead and shoulder-mounted guide signs for all drivers, and a 16 percent improvement in character recognition by older drivers. The Federal Highway Administration gave Clearview an official thimbs-up in 2004, and more than 20 states have adopted the typeface for use on new road signs.  Meanwhile, another big customer has taken an interest in the work of Meeker and Montalbano: the newly reconstituted AT&T embraced Clearview as its corporate logotype in 2005.

LINKS:
The Road to Clarity (New York Times Magazine article by Joshua Yaffa, with an excellent accompanying slideshow) 

Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (Amerca's road sign bible, published by the Federal Highway Administration)

Richard C. Moeur's traffic sign website (An excellent resource compiled by a traffic engineer)

DOWNLOAD:
Roadgeek Fonts (Free, downloadable TrueType fonts that approximate Highway Gothic and Clearview.  Thank you, Devin, for the tip!!)

TRIVIA BONUS:
Did you know that Telstar Logistics was incubated in New Jersey?  Are you tempted to ask "What exit?" Don't bother.  Here's the answer, in radiant Highway Gothic.

(Sign and font images above from the New York Times)

Comments

[Devin Lussier]

Very cool stuff, I'm already looking forward to when Clearview starts appearing down here in LA. It's the little things that make the big differences. Also, for the so inclined I found a font pack that include good imitations of Clearview, Highway Gothic, British Transport, etc.: http://www.triskele.com/roadgeek-fonts/

[Telstar Logistics]

Thank you Devin! That's so very much apprecitated. I added a link to the main post above.

[Kevin Kelly]

The Roadgeek site seems to be down, so I can't assess their fonts, but here is the official Clearview font webpage. Fonts go for $180 each.

[Christopher]

Um, am I the only one who thinks people who have trouble reading signs at night maybe should let someone else do the driving?

Also, since I used to be a copy editor, I feel compelled to point out that, technically, "font" refers to the size (eg., 12 pt.) while "typeface" refers to the particular style or design of the characters.