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The Feds' Freeway Font Flip-Flop (citylab.com)
McGruber writes: Citylab has the news that the U.S. Federal Highway Administration is revoking its 2004 approval of the "Clearview" font for road signs. Clearview was made to improve upon its predecessor, a 1940s font called Highway Gothic. Certain letters appeared to pose visibility problems, especially those with tight interstices (or internal spacing)—namely lowercase e, a, and s. At night, any of these reflective letters might appear to be a lowercase o in the glare of headlights. By opening up these letterforms, and mixing lowercase and uppercase styles, Clearview aimed to improve how these reflective highway signs read.
Now, just 12 years later, the FHWA is reversing itself: "After more than a decade of analysis, we learned—among other things—that Clearview actually compromises the legibility of signs in negative-contrast color orientations, such as those with black letters on white or yellow backgrounds like Speed Limit and Warning signs," said Doug Hecox, a FHWA spokesperson, in an email. The FHWA has not yet provided any research on Clearview that disproves the early claims about the font's benefits. But there is at least one factor that clearly distinguishes it from Highway Gothic: cost. Jurisdictions that adopt Clearview must purchase a standard license for type, a one-time charge of between $175 (for one font) and $795 (for the full 13-font typeface family) and up, depending on the number of workstations.
That doesn't seems like a very good use of tax money, for something that can be nondestructively reused once created.
Now, just 12 years later, the FHWA is reversing itself: "After more than a decade of analysis, we learned—among other things—that Clearview actually compromises the legibility of signs in negative-contrast color orientations, such as those with black letters on white or yellow backgrounds like Speed Limit and Warning signs," said Doug Hecox, a FHWA spokesperson, in an email. The FHWA has not yet provided any research on Clearview that disproves the early claims about the font's benefits. But there is at least one factor that clearly distinguishes it from Highway Gothic: cost. Jurisdictions that adopt Clearview must purchase a standard license for type, a one-time charge of between $175 (for one font) and $795 (for the full 13-font typeface family) and up, depending on the number of workstations.
That doesn't seems like a very good use of tax money, for something that can be nondestructively reused once created.
switch to an open source font.
Why is the government licensing a font from a commercial vendor? Wouldn't a more cost effective approach be to have one designed as a work for hire so they own the copyright making it public domahttp://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/02/01/199201/the-feds-freeway-font-flip-flop#in (since the public is paying for it).
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
It's not completely out of whack with what commercial enterprises pay for non-free fonts
Except it is totally out of what. Normal fonts are created speculatively and then licensed to interested parties.
This font was practically a work for hire in everything but name, I wouldn't be surprised to hear they were actually paid to create it up front, and then now we still have to license it back, for a font that's standardized accross a nationwide highway network... the purpose for which it was originally commissioned.
WORST case it should be licensed once for the nations highways. Period. If the designer wants to go out and try and license it to Mexico too.. that's fine, but the USA should only have to pay once to use it on any signage anywhere it wants. Forever.
why didn't any of these agencies say "So ... we're going to pay you a huge pile of money ... once ... for this font."
Because spending large piles of money is exactly what Republican's don't want to do; plus, being pro-business, it was in their interests to let some third-party company profit from this mandate. I also don't think it was a required mandate or a standard; if a jurisdiction didn't want to pay for Clearview, they could probably still use Highway Gothic. Clearview was just the other approved font.
Those prices are down right cheap. some fonts are $1000/per use one billboard is a use, one street sign is a use. But cumulatively it adds up to a whole lot of money for tax payers.
So lets agree there are two dimensions to this argument whether the Clearview font is superior which is the bulk of the article and whether the flame bait trailing paragraph means that we need to fix the economics.
Designing a font is a lot more work than you think if your goal is something legible unlike say Comic Sans. Designers should be compensated. I like to be paid for my work. It lets me eat. But the royalty model is perhaps broken. Alternatively the price is broken... There are many municipal sign shops unlike printers... probably be just Google and Apple licensing fonts for print production in the near future after they take over the remnants of Xerox. So street sign fonts should maybe be $1 to many municipalities while print (dead tree type) fonts should maybe be $2mil per licensee? Or perhaps better the government could have commissioned the font and then provided it to any municipality.
As to the merits of Clearview? I think the font is too light in the default weight. I have no research to back this up just 10yrs of gut experience. It does not exist in weights suitable for street name signs... which makes me leery of suggesting it to my municipality for use. It does have more open vowel glyphs and as such is an improvement over the Highway Gothic, though most people do not read character glyph at a time while driving... they look for word outlines, so perhaps that doesn't matter. Then again my mother slows down to read highway signs because she has trouble with is that an 'e' or an 'o'.
My thoughts? The Obama administration could do worse with its money than running a design a replacement highway font contest. Prize: $100,000, 2nd and 3rd runners up $30,000 and $15,000 but the font must be made available license free within the US at least. Have Google Manage distribution and grant $1,000,000 to PennDOT to test. (Unlike other DOT's PennDot can actually do this work... don't ask me about DOT's in the South wow... just wow...)
As a republican too, I can explain why they didn't secure the license for the font they paid to develop.... It's government stupidity silly.
You see, the government wastes money, and time in abundance while producing garbage because there is no real motivation to be efficient and quick or to fulfill the users' needs built into the system. This is unlike capitalism where being efficient and fast is considered a virtue and if you don't produce what the consumer wants you die.... Well, unless you are "to big to fail" or some group of progressives get the idea they have to bail you out....
But you knew that anyway....
Personally, I think that anything like this, fonts, software, data collections that the government pays to get developed should be made available to the general public by default. All contracts should have boilerplate language designed to ensure this. Only things related to national security and defense should be allowed to remain out of the public eye, but even those should be "FREE of license costs" forever.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
and if you don't produce what the consumer wants you die
Fucking explain DRM then.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Actually, if you want to play R vs. D...
In 2004, when this was approved, the President (George W. Bush) was a republican. So, ah ha!
Of course, in 2004, the Secretary of Transportation (Norman Mineta) was a democrat. So, ah ha!
In other words, at least in this case, it's kind of silly to play "R vs. D," unless you want to say that "they both do it."
We're not the consumer of DRM schemes.