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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.
.. and very pro capitalism, etc bla bla.
But ... common ... how can our Federal Highway Administration go about researching and the setting a standard for a font ... and then be so stupid as to not procure rights to that font and then license them to every other agency/company at no cost?
As a republican ... this is the kind of thing I expect my government TO do. I know wikipedia says "It was developed by independent researchers with the help of the Texas Transportation Institute and the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute, under the supervision of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)," why didn't any of these agencies say "So ... we're going to pay you a huge pile of money ... once ... for this font."
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True, but it's a relatively small amount of money. It's not completely out of whack with what commercial enterprises pay for non-free fonts. And, to be honest, if someone invested in this project thinking "Hmm, if I invest on research into improving something with a direct affect on road safety and transportation efficiency, I'll make money!" that's... not a bad thing. Beats "Hmm, if I invest in research on blowing people up, the government will give me money!" anyway.
Copyright isn't a terrible idea, just one that's abused from time to time. The target audience for this font can easily afford the money they're asking for, and it's a worthy product if the font does what it's designed to do. (Whether that's true is a separate issue from "Should we occasionally pay for fonts?")
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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 domain (since the public is paying for it). Re posting since a bunch of crap got added to my previous post.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
You communist ! Wingdings all the way !
Why? For purpose? To save $175? Cause if so your cutting off your nose to spite your ignorant face.
You do realize the paint on each sign (EACH) probably costs more than that.
And with the OSS font you get? A shitty font because people who are good at spending the many long hours of work required to make good fonts DONT FUCKING DO IT FOR FREE.
You guys get all uppity about stupid shit. If the fact that some designer at some company had to buy the font before the could make signs is irrelevant. Force the graphics artist to deal with some half assed font package in order to get your OSS font is going to cost you more up front.
You guys do realize that cities and states outsource this shit right? There are a small collection of companies that design these signs for the government as needed. So again, it's bought once and used in hundreds of places. And you'll spend more time and money arguing about which every font YOU think is best than just buying the shitty thing.
Before you promote something OSS there has to be at least one instance of that type of object that doesn't suck, and as far as fonts are concerned, OSS is absolute shit.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
If you love Comic Sans, or if you hate Comic Sans, have a look at what Comic Sans wanted to be when it grew up: Comic Neue.
You should also take a look at the Filmotype Apache/August/Beaver family. It's a "casual serif", which has been digitized under the names URW Apache, Panache Stanley and Sixpack, Cochise, Toledo, and Jester. Respected businesses use this family for their corporate branding, including ABCmouse Early Learning Academy and Harris Teeter Neighborhood Food and Pharmacy. It balances the bounciness and honesty of a hand-lettering typeface and the form variety of a dyslexia-friendly typeface with the dignity of a serif, and the best part is that it isn't Comic Sans.
You know... I've actually had serious conversations with serious people about the font used on signs. It is not, technically, my area of expertise but I'm expected to know it, have hired someone familiar with it, or to have a consultant on hand for it. Well no, now I'm expected to be retired...
While I realize you were joking... How familiar are people with it? How well is its contrast with the various lighting expectations? How much information can be conveyed in the same space?
Given my druthers, and not being an expert, I'd like to see Helvetica be tested for use. So long as certain highways (namely those that are federally owned and under their authority) meet a minimal criteria, the municipality is allowed to enact most anything it wants. Of course, wide variations would be bad as they would lead to confusion and unfamiliarity.
For the English language, Helvetica seems to be a good choice. If, on the off chance, you're interested - there's actually a movie by that name. It's a documentary (of course, that's all I watch) and surprisingly interesting and informative. I watched it because I knew a bit about it but it turned out to be much better than one might expect. (A documentary about fonts???)
I'm also partial to some of the Ariel (or is it Arial) fonts. I'm not sure that they'd make good signage due to their width of the letter body (those crazy bastards have a specific name for all that stuff - including stuff like serifs, kerning, etc) and I'm not sure about Helvetica - I am not an expert. I have hired and consulted with experts and passed their recommendations along. (Usually it's basically, "How the hell should I know and it's not like they're actually going to listen. Go with the default. At least it works.) So, my suggestion is that they look into it. I'd hate to make an authoritative statement when I am not, in fact, an authority.
In the course of my professional career, I've had many discussions about signs and their fonts. No, I did not recommend the font you hate. That was some other guy or they didn't listen to me. It's never my fault, after all. I did not, however, expect to see it on Slashdot - ever. I didn't even submit this. So, if you have any questions about fonts and signage, I'm sure plenty of people here have an opinion on the matter. Me? I've really only got suggestions. There exist actual experts on this topic. I kind of doubt any of us are. I'm moderately familiar so I'm sure I'll be amused by the contents of the thread.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The problem is that some of the "uniqueness" / charm of Comic Sans is lost with Comic Neue.
Whether you think this is a good thing (or bad) thing will depend if you hate (or like) hate Comic Sans, respectively.
The problem is when you "quantize" the glyph's strokes the font becomes "sterile" and loses that "human touch" or aspect.
To give an analogy, there is a reason music is NOT _precisely_ played on the beat; a human has some very subtle variation giving it a "organic" feel. Once you quantize everything to _precisely_ 1 / # ms music sounds "robotic", sterile, bland. Even more so with swing.
I agree with this analysis:
The problem with all the people hating Comic Sans is that:
a) they tend to be self-righteous, pretentious font connoisseurs, and
b) Not realizing "Most People Don't Give a Fuck."
I'm not defending Comic Sans saying it is a great font -- it isn't. It's kerning sucks.
But to blinding hate a font without understanding what few (or even one) strengths it has is just plain ignorance.
That Comic Neue website is not bad, but it really needs to show the context of all three fonts (Comic Sans, Comic Neue Light, and Comic Neue Angular Light), so people can specifically see what is different / changed.